“Is it working?” I said.
He gave a cautious nod. “Yeah. Creatively the music is flowing and the poison is being drained. I’m getting there.”
“When you do, it’ll be incredible.”
“My personal cheerleading section.” His eyes gleamed.
“Forget it. I don’t own pompoms.”
Rohan snagged the final piece of cookie. “A guy can dream. How are you doing? What do you need tonight?”
“Help keep the peace. Leo’s coming. And she’s not hiding who she is anymore.”
“Wow. We’re still on the ‘go big or go home’ game plan.”
“Apparently. Let’s hope it works better this time around.”
Baruch, Kane, Ari, Ro, Ms. Clara, and I watched the hands of the clock like the timer of a bomb, each tick dragging us forward to the inevitable explosion.
I wiped my hands on my jeans for the thirtieth time, my stomach a tight, nauseous mess, though that might have been the sheer number of headache pills that I was popping on a regular basis.
The sharp rap on the front door at 9:05PM was a relief. Events were in motion.
“Yo, witch girl!” Danilo, a Filipino Rasha, tatted up and with the cut strength of an MMA fighter, strutted into the room, followed by Bastijn, all dark curls and panty-melting eyes with a long, lean body, and Cisco, chiseled Native American hotness, his hair pulled back in a short ponytail.
I flung myself at them, squishing them in a fierce hug.
“Careful, chama.” Bastijn extricated himself, his hand on his ribs.
Cisco had a black eye and Danilo’s arm was in a cast.
“What happened to you three?” I said.
“Oh, not just us.” Cisco slapped Ro on the back.
“Used up another one of your lives, man?” Ro said.
“Got two or three left,” Cisco said.
“Keep it that way,” Ro replied.
“We had a lead on our missing Rasha.” Pierre hobbled into the room. “Had to check it out.”
“You have a very weak chin,” Baruch said. “I would grow the beard back.”
Ms. Clara elbowed him sharply. “You look fine, Pierre.”
Pierre rubbed his hand over his chin. “The beard was scorched off by a witch.”
“Glad as I am to see you all, where’s everyone else?” Ari said.
Danilo piled sliced Havarti and salami onto a Portuguese bun. “Mahmud might be dead. Depends on whether he connected with the tree Raquel flung him at.”
“You didn’t stick around to check?” I ran to the window.
“We’re not stupid,” Bastijn said.
Ari clapped his hand over Kane’s mouth.
“It’s not sexist when we didn’t know you existed.” Mahmud stomped into the room, tiny twigs stuck in his dark hair and goatee. His exquisitely tailored shirt was ripped under one arm.
“Had you thought about it for two seconds, you’d have realized the impossibility of only men having magic.” Cartoon steam practically poured out of Raquel’s ears. She wore a short black dress, a couple of shades darker than her skin, and red stilettos that could inflict grievous bodily harm. She rounded on me. “You better have proof that Esther wanted us all to meet, because I have gone way above and beyond bringing these assholes here.”
“No other witches came?” I said.
“Gracias a Dios,” Bastijn said, crossing himself.
Danilo dropped into a chair and swung a foot onto the coffee table, sandwich in hand. “I dunno. I’m game to meet more.” He leered cheerfully at Raquel.
“Proof,” she snapped.
I held up Esther’s lighter.
“Where’d you get that” she said.
“Esther bequeathed it to me.” Obviously, I intended to live up to Esther’s faith in me, and I was fine playing that card to get Raquel onboard, but I wasn’t sure yet what being a fire-tender meant. It seemed so huge, like I was supposed to be this massive blaze keeping evil at bay, where I felt more like a couple of tiki torches at best.
“Fuck.” Raquel reached out her hands to throttle me, then threw them up in frustration.
I snickered. “Now you must obey me.”
Mahmud dug into his pocket and pulled out his own lighter. “Does this mean you have to obey me, too?”
Ro shook his head frantically at him.
Raquel lifted Mahmud off the ground without touching him and fired him toward the window.
Baruch caught him, inches from the glass. “We need him.”
He set Mahmud on his feet, then calmly set about making his own panini.
Mahmud moved away from the window. “I’m not working with this… this…”
“This what?” Raquel demanded.
“I’m kind of curious to hear the answer, too,” Ms. Clara said.
“Et tu, Brute?” Mahmud said, joining Baruch at the food.
“Back off,” Baruch said in a mild voice.
Bastijn slapped ten bucks into Cisco’s hand.
The front door banged open and Drio flashed in. “Where is she?”
The room sucked in a collective breath.
Grooming and Drio were no longer on intimate terms and sanity appeared to have done a runner as well. In wrinkled clothing, a bushy dark blond beard covered his face, and his red-rimmed eyes were only slightly less vivid than the purple bags under them.
“Where? Is? She?”
“Hybris isn’t actually here.” I yelped and portalled briefly out of the room, sidestepping Drio’s flash-step in my direction.
I portalled back in. Silver magic crackled over my skin, level four and barely in check. “Stay calm.”
“Where the hell have you been?” Rohan demanded.
“Tracking,” Drio said.
“Funny. Because you look exactly like you did after Asha’s death when you’d been drunk for a week.”
“Fuck you, Mitra. If you’d killed Hybris like you said you were going to before, we wouldn’t be hanging in the wind now.”
Ro’s blades shot out.
A piercing whistle cut through the room.
“Sit down and shut up.” Leo strolled into the room and shoved Drio down into the chair.
His eyes bugged out.
“You aren’t going to find Hybris in that state. Or at each other’s throats.”
She glared at Rohan until he retracted his blades.
“Way to make an entrance, pint-size,” Kane said.
Pretty much everyone except Drio was now helping themselves to food.
“Who are you?” Cisco asked.
“Leonie Hendricks.” Leo bowed to the assembled guests and grabbed a cookie. “Private Investigator, half-demon, and Nava’s best friend.”
Drio tensed up.
Pierre jabbed a finger at me. “You’re lucky I don’t have to file official reports anymore.”
I dropped my head into my hands with a groan.
“Did you know?” Kane said.
Ari nodded.
“When?”
“I found out that night we went to the club and met Malik. I’m sorry. I would have said something, but you know.”
Kane smirked. “I know that I’m the superior Rasha because I suspected the first time I met her here. She presented the same symptoms of distress as other demons brought behind the wards. That night at the club nailed it for me. Redcap goblin.”
“Liar. I successfully distracted you that night.” I licked a drop of mustard off my finger.
“No offense, babyslay, but you’re about as subtle as an asteroid.”
“You don’t care that I didn’t tell you?” Leo said.
“Why would I? That’s yours to share as you see fit.”
“Imagine that,” she said.
Drio crossed his arms.
“Did you know?” Baruch asked Ms. Clara.
“I know everything,” she said primly. “As I keep telling you.”
Danilo grabbed a carrot stick and jabbed it in the ranch dip. “A PD, huh?”
Leo rapped Danilo on the knuckles with one of the plastic sparkling water bottles. “Half-demon.”
“Fucking hell!”
Raquel laughed. “Nice to meet you, Leonie Hendricks.”
“Hybris,” Drio said. “Where is she?”
As everyone ate, I gave the fastest recap of all events involving Rabbi Mandelbaum, the Ring of Solomon, and Josip’s death that I could, my words tumbling out of me as I tried to catch the Rasha up before Drio lost what little patience he was clinging to. While I mentioned that Hybris had killed Josip, I didn’t tell the others about the Asha deception.
“My mom got this in the mail.” I handed the matchbook to Drio. “We think it’s a concrete link to the ring. Both Mandelbaum’s people and Hybris are looking for it.”
“I thought she can’t use the ring,” Raquel said.
“She can’t,” I said.
“But she’s got vendettas to settle,” Rohan said. “Hybris managed to clear her name as the one who spread those rumors on the demon dark web. Not only is she not being hunted anymore, a number of demons are furious that we made fools of them. They’ve teamed up with her. Mandelbaum, Nava, me, Drio, we’re all active targets right now.”
“Good.” Drio’s eyes flashed. “I’m coming with you to see this Kyle person.”
“Excellent, but that’s not why I called this meeting,” I said. “Most of the Rasha are still captive and for the past couple of weeks, no one has been killing demons. Now there are a handful of us free, but it’s not enough.”
The mood in the room turned grim. Without doubt, the demons loose on earth had taken advantage of our absence. There was no way to assess how much damage they’d done.
“I’m still trying to find our Rasha or Mandelbaum by tracking the money, but nothing’s popping up, yet,” Kane said. “Until then, we’re limited in how many hunters we have.”
“No, we’re not,” I said.
Raquel nibbled on a strawberry. “You want witches to join in?”
“It’s your job, too,” Mahmud said. That boy liked living dangerously.
“Witches can kill demons that we’ve failed to because you are more powerful,” Baruch said. “But we’ve got the training most of you no longer have. We pair up. Deploy to the most critical areas.”
“It’s like with the rift.” I accepted the celery stalk that Rohan offered me. I was eating celery when all I craved were more cookies. If that wasn’t love, I don’t know what was. “We’re all focused on our own thing, patching gaping wounds with band-aids. Have you come up with any solutions?”
“Not yet,” Raquel said.
I finished the tasteless vegetable, then took another stalk, because it was the perfect dip delivery shape and I did like my ranch. “Healing that rift is super urgent. You need to figure it out.”
Before I was forced to let Sienna play peek-a-boo in my brain and possibly doom all the Rasha.
“Thanks. I got that,” Raquel said.
“It’s time to pool our resources and pool our strengths. What did Harry say about the intel?” I asked Leo.
“He’s in. He said this was better than the Mothership and it was about time we all got off our collective asses and got in the fight together.”
“What about intel?” Pierre said.
“The Brotherhood had Orwell,” I said. “The demons have the dark web, which, thanks to Leo and Harry, we have access to as well.”
“The witches must have information systems,” Kane said.
“Yes, but—” Raquel said.
“Then pick the women who would be best suited for the job to work with Pierre and me, and let’s build a bigger and better system,” he said.
“Not all the witches will agree to this,” Raquel said.
“Not all the Rasha still held captive will either,” Baruch said. “We’ll lose some once they get out and see how the wind is blowing. But we must move forward as a cohesive whole.”
“We should relocate to Los Angeles,” Cisco said.
“Find a secure location to establish Command Central,” Ari said.
“We’ll help,” Danilo said.
“Will the witches help us track down the rest of the hunters?” I said.
“I don’t know.” Raquel’s voice held an uncharacteristic defensive edge. “You’re asking for everything all at once.”
I held up the lighter. “You’re a leader and I need you. Will you fight with me?”
Maybe that was how I tended this flame. You couldn’t build a fire with one log, it took a pile of them, carefully arranged and kindled. So, Raquel could be the next log on this fire. Fingers crossed.
“This could lead to civil war among the witches,” she said.
“It might,” I said. “But our world, our ways of fighting, are deeply and profoundly broken. We need to forge a new path.”
She sighed. “Fine, Luna. I’m in.”
I clapped my hands, bouncing up and down. I’d teamed up the witches and Rasha. I allowed myself a moment of smugness and another chocolate chip cookie.
“Don’t break out the bubbly yet. We need to overcome an eon of misogyny and mistrust.” She pointed at Baruch. “Try and sideline us or relegate us to some kind of touchy-feely healer shit while you take all the good gigs, and we’ll own your asses. Clear?”
“Clear.”
Ms. Clara, who had silently been watching the proceedings until now, raised her hand. “Hi. I’m Clara.”
I gasped. Raquel rocketed to first name privileges and I was stuck at prefix level-friendship?
“I’ve been an Executive Administrator in the Brotherhood for six years now. I have skills and you need them.”
Kane covered his mouth in an aside to Raquel. “She’s also a dominatrix. She has skills and you need them.”
“Got any whips and floggers to co-opt for people who step out of line?” Raquel said.
“I’ve got all kinds of special resources,” Ms. Clara said.
“Good,” Raquel said. “Welcome aboard.”
“Where are we at on the Satan front?” Ari asked.
“Satan?” Cisco said.
“It’s not a party until the king of the demons shows up.” I gave the other Rasha a quick recap of the situation, refusing to allow any pitying glances or comments.
“A friend of ours is decoding a ritual to get Lilith’s magic out of Nava in hopes that gets Satan off her back. It’s slow going but she’s making progress,” Raquel said.
I continued my update. “One of the things we need is extremely powerful magic blood. Therefore, I’m gonna take care of two problems at once. Kill Satan and use his blood.”
“I like how you think,” Danilo said.
“That’s worrisome,” Bastijn said.
“How will you get close enough to Satan to kill him?” Cisco said.
“There’s a demon whose interests have aligned with mine for the time being.”
“Don’t you dare say Malik,” Kane said.
“Okay, I won’t. Any last questions?”
Baruch studied the matchbook. “We should leave for the club soon and find this Kyle. Nava, are you going to portal us all?”
They were all coming? These guys were the best. However, I took an extra moment to sulk in Ms. Clara’s direction.
“We’ll discuss it,” she said.
I grinned. “Then we can go.”
The power cut out, plunging us into shadow.
The line of windows behind the long wooden table imploded, showering us in a deadly rainfall of a thousand tiny glass daggers. Four black-clad figures on rappel lines swung into the room, machine guns strapped to their backs. They wore some type of modified night vision glasses.
Baruch flipped the sofa, and pretty much threw Ms. Clara and Leo into the crawl space underneath.
Bullets scattered like seeds of destruction. Wood chips flew and shredded books shot up into the air like confetti.
Every bullet made mockery of the ideals of togetherness, loyalty, and inclusivity that I
held true. Mandelbaum had come after his own. I clenched my fists, my jaw rigid in the face of this violation. This wasn’t just some Brotherhood base; the chapter house had become my home and now it was being destroyed. My internal fire hissed through my body like poison, screeching for release.
“Nava!” Raquel froze two of the mercenaries in their tracks.
Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her, I dropped them to the ground like garbage.
Baruch tackled another mercenary, while Drio grabbed the fourth one in a choke hold and Ro sliced the tendons in the man’s wrist.
His machine gun tumbled to the carpet.
Tendrils of fog rolled in through the windows. It blanketed the back yard, a sticky mucus that curled around us, dirty and malicious. This was a demon’s work, which meant that the wards had come down. Demons couldn’t breach our property unless a Rasha had broken the wards.
I took shallow breaths, desperate not to swallow the molecules of gasoline and rancid slaughterhouse that permeated the air.
More gunfire crackled outside.
The men leapt over the detritus and jumped out through the empty window frames.
Raquel jerked her chin at Ms. Clara and Leo. “Want me to get them to safety?”
Before I could answer yes and dive into the fight, the world went dark, the magic fog sucking out all light.
Raquel and I tried to illuminate the library, but the fog smothered it.
There was another long burst of bullets. A red-hot piece of metal grazed my cheek and I dropped to the ground. I called out for my friends, but my words were stolen by the unnatural darkness.
Into the dense silence came the roar of actual fire. This wasn’t a gentle crackle that slowly built into something more, it was an instant inferno devouring the library. Water poured down over me from the sprinkler system that did nothing to dampen the blaze.
I broke out coughing and fell to my knees, groping around blindly but I had no idea where anyone was and I couldn’t call out because the smoke was choking me, flames snatching away my words.
Nava Katz Box Set 2 Page 76
