The oshk’s arm slithered back up the demon, reattaching itself in place. Where was the Humpty-Dumpty-couldn’t-put-it-back-together-again model of demon when you needed it?
It flowed its blobby body out of my magic net, keening in rage. My repeated strikes blew it back, but for every foot of ground it lost it jumped forward two more, pushing us back toward the stairs.
I glanced over my shoulder, calculating the distance before it had us trapped in that narrow space.
Rohan upped his assault, a blur of slicing and dicing. The demon slithered its body to surround him.
A glint of a blade, the wet plop of flesh hitting the ground, I couldn’t get a clean bead on the demon. Magic danced over my skin as I muttered “Come on,” over and over again.
The oshk rippled with a low bassy gurgle and blew Rohan back against the wall.
I heard his back crunch against a fat joist, but my vision was filled with the demon looming over me. I danced back a couple of steps, hit the bottom step, and fell backwards.
The demon bobbed up the staircase without touching me, its features contorted in fury.
“Uh, hello?” I blasted it in the back and it jerked, blowing out a stream of clear liquid that flew over my head to splash the ceiling, mostly absorbed by the exposed insulation.
I lowered the hands I’d flung over my face, and patted myself down, but I hadn’t been hit by its secretion. Had I been a couple feet deeper into the room, it would have been a different story. I hopped onto the first stair to follow and was tugged back into Ro’s arms. I struggled. “Don’t even think I’m staying–”
He nuzzled my neck. “Stop making me chase you.”
“What?” I elbowed him, jerking free. “This isn’t the time.”
“Completely and utterly slain.”
I whirled around. Ro gazed at me moonily. “Oh fuck. Rohan.”
“Yeah, sweetheart?” He tried to pull me into his arms once more, but I danced out of reach.
His blades, his skin–he’d come into contact with the spawn. The demon had to be the basis of Sweet Tooth and Ro was under its influence. And Rohan had touched me. Was it transferable? I stepped farther away. “The oshk. You touched it.”
“Only wanna touch you,” he said. “Be with you. You’re my light.”
Something heavy upstairs hit the floor with a reverberating thud.
I cast an anxious glance at the ceiling. Mistake. In the spilt second of taking my eyes off Ro, he’d caught me again.
Sweet Tooth made people go fucking bonkers. I couldn’t leave Ro alone if he might hurt himself.
“We need to be together, baby.” His hold on me tightened. Ro’s eye were tinged with the same mania I’d seen in Naomi’s back at the club. I didn’t feel any different though, so I didn’t think second-hand oshk was a thing.
The demon was tearing upstairs apart and howling. Rohan wasn’t fazed by it.
I struggled to free myself without zapping him, but I couldn’t. The boyfriend who’d cradled me so tenderly last night was gone.
Glass shattered upstairs.
“Nava?” Rohan’s smile was so sweet. I almost fell for it until I saw the off-kilter glint in his eyes.
Oh, Snowflake. I bit my lip. “Sorry, babe. Demon first, creeper stalker boyfriend second.” I gave him a vicious electric shock. His face crumpled in bewildered hurt. I tore free and ran up the stairs, bolting the basement door from my side.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Goddamn addictive personalities. Of all the times to be proven right. There were levels of cold hard action I was fine with; disempowering Ro wasn’t one of them. I couldn’t get his betrayed look out of my head so I drew it in to myself, letting it fuel me.
The oshk waddled into the kitchen, its tiny head bowed in defeat and its body covered in streaks of red rust. The marks corresponded to where Ro had slashed it. Iron poisoning.
The demon jerked at the sight of me and tried to portal out, but it had been injured enough that it couldn’t go anywhere. It ballooned up, expanding to take over most of the kitchen real estate, quivering more violently the larger it got.
I dove past it, hitting the living room floor in a sloppy roll, and flattening myself against the wall. Liquid splatted against the walls and floor in the kitchen like a hard rain storm but I was safe in the other room. Gag-inducing cotton candy stank overrode the natural mustiness of the house.
The basement door rattled, Rohan yelling for me.
I unleashed a volley of strikes at the oshk. The demon shrank back to its normal, admittedly still massive size, shooting more trippy liquid. It made a hell of a fire hose.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Rohan threw himself against the door. I prayed it held with Old Faithful geysering in there. If Ro got loose and came after me, I couldn’t take both him and the demon on.
Didn’t matter how much I peppered the demon with strikes, methodically covering every inch of it, I couldn’t find the kill spot. That meant that, as with certain other demons, the kill spot was inside it somewhere. I’d have to open it up.
I regretted not having more weapons training. My magic generally served me well, but right about now, it would have been handy having some expertise with something sharp and iron to cut the fucker up. I’d gotten complacent relying on Ro, never thinking he’d be part of my problem. Though this had been an ambush, so I wouldn’t have known to bring a long-range weapon with me.
Rubbing the sweat from my eyes with the inside of an elbow, I raised my arms above my head to dissipate the lactic acid burn in my side, my breaths coming in harsh pants. I was almost tapped out. I tried to shut out Ro’s increasingly more furious screams and pounding. Tried to shut out how Jake had literally killed himself at this point of the drug trip attempting to get his object of desire.
Repeating “sorry,” I called up all the magic I had left into a tight, hard knot.
It wasn’t going to be enough.
The basement door splintered. “Nava!” Ro roared.
Adrenaline flooded my system. My skin turned blue, lightning bolts sliding over my skin.
This isn’t my boyfriend. It’s the drug.
“Stay away from her,” Ro growled.
My blood ran cold. With Ro lost to this addictive drive to get to me, he was in no headspace to take on the demon. I jumped into the doorway humming and crackling with magic. “Yo!” I yelled, turning the oshk’s attention away from Rohan.
I blew the demon to smithereens.
Ever seen those old Bugs Bunny cartoons where the character’s eyes bugged out of their head, then snapped back into place? It was like that, but full-body. For one second, the oshk splintered into tiny pieces. It wasn’t all nice smooth blob either. There were bits of undigested flesh, bone fragments and one fist-sized piece that was beating–its black lumpy heart. They hung there for one impossible moment, then snapped back together.
I stumbled back. At the same moment that I’d blown it up, Ro had slashed out at the demon to get it out of the way and when the demon reformed, Ro’s arm was stuck in the middle of it, buried up to his shoulder, his blade just peeking out.
The oshk and I both froze. Rohan didn’t even blink. He jerked his arm upward to free it, slicing through the oshk’s heart from the inside.
The demon shriveled in on itself and disappeared, dead.
Ro bestowed this beautiful smile on me like he’d found a treasure. “I saved you.”
Say what? “Rohan, listen to me. The oshk produces Sweet Tooth.”
“That’s nice.” He grinned and crooked a finger at me. “Stop being coy and come here.”
I tapped my knuckles together anxiously. Could I wait out the effects? He hadn’t actually been hit with the secretion, just touched the demon’s flesh. Though maybe it was a secretion coating that gave the oshk’s skin its oily iridescence?
His expression shot from glorious sun to the most thunderous of storms when I failed to answer. “Nava.”
Damn it.
Using a roundhouse punch for more force, I clock
ed Rohan in the jaw. His head snapped sideways and he went down for the count. I crouched down to check his pulse, then assuring myself he was going to be fine, pressed a kiss to his forehead.
I sat down on the floor next to him and waited it out. The house was silent save for the gurgle of the water intake for the furnace. Yay, I’d killed the oshk and stopped any more Sweet Tooth from hitting the streets. But at what cost? I checked Ro’s breathing again, then pulled my knees into my chest, rested my head on top, and kept watch.
The soft dusty rose of dawn tinted the sky.
“Nava?”
I helped my groggy boyfriend sit up. He cracked his back getting up from the linoleum, but he wasn’t mauling me so I guess the drug had run its course. That was good. The bruise on his face from my punch, less so.
What was the appropriate greeting in this situation?
He rubbed his jaw. “Your training is working.”
“We gonna talk about this?”
“And say what?” His gaze was pure challenge.
That everything I’ve been scared of is true. That you’re rushing us, investing yourself because you need a purpose, and I need us to take things one day at a time because this is all so new and I care about you so much and I don’t want us to crash and burn like Cole and I did. That I don’t want to end up crying in the middle of the street because you only loved the idea of me. “Are we still good?”
Rohan blinked. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? What I did…” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t me.”
Except it kind of was. “I know.” My voice was tighter than I’d intended it. I softened my tone as I added, “And I’m sorry for clocking you. I didn’t feel like I had any other option.”
“I appreciate that, but you sidelined me twice because you decided that the best way to protect me was to keep me out of the fray.”
“What would you have had me do?”
“I don’t know.” His voice was as full of anger and resignation as mine had been. He exhaled, pushing to his feet. “Any useful evidence downstairs?”
Good talk.
“I haven’t checked yet. I wanted to keep an eye on you.”
“No time like the present.” Rohan glanced at the shattered basement door, his expression unreadable, then headed downstairs.
I stepped over some tangled plastic tubing on the basement concrete floor lying next to an overturned chair. Ro pointed to two containers on a metal table. One was a thin, glass vial minus the Sweet Tooth label that held the familiar pink crystals. The other was a plastic container like the sterilized ones they gave you for urine samples. The seal had been broken and it held a clear liquid with pale streaks of blood floating in lazy twists.
Rohan picked it up and walked over near the spot on the ceiling that the oshk’s secretion had hit when I’d attacked it. Cotton-candy scented clear liquid had dripped on the floor. “Do you see another sterilized container?”
I sorted through the wreckage until I found one that the oshk hadn’t crushed. Rohan collected the liquid and sealed it up.
“Don’t get any on you,” I said. “With all your issues and the drug in its purest potency?” I mock-shuddered. “I know I’m irresistible, but you were precariously close to Fatal Attraction territory there. Boiling bunnies. Yikes.”
Rohan raised his eyebrows.
“Too soon?”
That earned me a ghost of a smile. “I’m astounded you held off this long. Besides, my focused, passionate nature–”
“You mean your willingness to obsess?”
“I mean, my absolute commitment and perseverance has served me well. Landed me record contracts, tricky demon kills. You.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Too soon?”
I laughed and swatted him.
We found a trash bag to dump lab wreckage into, taking that and the three containers with us: the vial with the crystals, the blood-streaked liquid already sealed up, and the new clear secretion we’d collected. We dropped the containers off at a twenty-four hour courier service, expedited to a Rasha-owned lab in New York where they could analyze the substances and see if, as suspected, we had a match between the oshk secretion and Sweet Tooth.
My stomach rumbled, so I pulled into a diner that was almost full with a brisk breakfast rush, snagging the last tiny booth in the back. My anger had faded, leaving only hunger and exhaustion. The blueberry pancakes I ordered were light and fluffy with fat fresh strawberries slices on top and a heaping dollop of whipped cream. The bacon was extra crispy.
Rohan’s veggie omelet, no cheese, looked very healthy.
“Healthy isn’t leprosy. It’s actually the opposite,” he said.
“Who said a word?” I drizzled melted butter on my pancakes.
“You did.” He nudged my leg. His expression of fond exasperation was so familiar and welcome that the vise around my chest loosened.
I held a forkful of strawberry-adorned pancake at him. “Live a little.”
He leaned in for the bite, sucking whipped cream off my fingers. “I’m not denying the appetites that matter.”
Two could play this game. I slipped off my shoe and snuggled my toes onto his dick. Keeping my eyes on my food, I fought a grin, massaging until he got hard. So, like ten seconds.
Under the table, he grabbed my foot. “Enough,” he growled.
I motioned our waiter for more coffee. “Think Candyman screwed the oshk over in some drug partnership? That demon was pissed.”
Rohan added some hot sauce to the last third of his omelet. “All I care about is that Leo said the oshk was a Unique and we’ve eliminated the source of the Sweet Tooth.”
The analysis would conclusively confirm it, but the chances were high that the drug was off the street forever. Candyman still needed to be apprehended, but we’d put him out of business. I clinked my mug to Rohan’s. “We make a good team.”
“The best.”
If we both injected a bit too much enthusiasm into our words, maybe that was okay.
With hours until we’d hear back about the Sweet Tooth analysis, we decided to crash so we could hit the ground running finding Candyman. Drio wouldn’t be back until tomorrow and depending on what he’d learned from Golda, we’d need a strategy around that as well.
We made one quick pit stop at the cemetery in Vancouver–not the Jewish one, where cremation was forbidden–to meet the Rasha-friendly employee there and burn the trash bag of busted-up lab equipment, and then it was bedward-ho.
I slept okay for a while but a text from Sienna on my burner phone on behalf of Dr. Gelman woke me up.
Esther has a promising lead on the bindings. She’ll be out of isolation today if you want to come by. Before I had time to yawn, let alone compose a reply, another message sailed on in: For whatever unknown reason, your last visit cheered her up.
I added Sienna to the list of people who were never going to be a fan.
I snuggled back under the covers against my furnace boyfriend, but, hard as I tried, I couldn’t fall back asleep again. My promise to Ari to go see my mom weighed on me. I’d let my resentment toward my parents, especially Mom, fester for years and could have easily gone another decade, but I kept seeing Gelman wasted by cancer.
I heaved myself out of bed with a huff and snatched up some clothes.
“Where you going?” Rohan mumbled from under the pillow he’d stuffed on his head when my phone had gone off.
I popped my head out of my sundress. “To see my mom.”
He pulled the pillow off and cracked one eye open. “You want me to come with?”
I rumpled his hair. “Best if I don’t have witnesses, but thanks.”
He flopped over. “When you get back, we can Skype my parents.”
I whacked him in the head with his pillow “Not funny.”
“You’ll have to meet Mom at some point,” he called out.
I kept marching down the hallway. “Let’s see how things go with the blood-related m
other first.” I crossed my fingers, not entirely sure which way I wanted things to go, and went to keep my damn promise.
Chapter 12
Mom was teaching, so I drove over to UBC to catch the end of her class. I slipped into the back of the lecture hall. It was summer semester and this was a third-year history class, so there were few enough students that she noticed my entrance.
She was wearing the green shirt. This weird glowy feeling warmed my chest. Idiot. It was a shirt. It was clean. She didn’t know I’d be here today and it had nothing to do with me. Especially since Mom didn’t even pause speaking when I came in, her eyes glancing off me from her position at her lectern to the student in the front row who’d raised her hand.
“Can you elaborate on what you meant by ‘David was not the underdog of legend?’” the student asked.
“Underdog implies that the odds are stacked against the person because they haven’t the skill or experience.” Mom had devoted her academic career to becoming the foremost expert on King David. She’d told Ari and me that originally she’d planned to focus on the Roman rule of Judea back in the fifties B.C.E., but after Ari’s destiny was revealed, she’d switched her attention to the man who’d founded the Brotherhood.
Even her professional choices were centered around Ari.
I pried my fingers off of my purse and smoothed out my expression. Mom was watching me.
“David was unwilling to follow the rules of honorable conduct that Goliath expected,” she said. “He brought a projectile to the fight instead of engaging in hand-to-hand combat. Even King Saul expected the single combat method, as evidenced by him attempting to dress David in his own armor.”
“David played dirty,” the student said.
“David played to win.” Mom adjusted the glasses she wore to clearly see students at the back of the room. I forced myself to remain relaxed. “Hitting Goliath with that slingshot wasn’t luck. David was a precise slinger. It was how he’d fought off wild animals as a shepherd. Armor was also heavy, so David kept speed and agility on his side by refusing to wear any. Then there’s the fact that Goliath requested that David come to him. Why? Goliath was a seasoned warrior. A giant of a man. He wouldn’t have been scared of David. It’s now believed that he suffered from acromegaly.” She wrote the word on the board behind her.
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-6: A Complete Paranormal Romantic Comedy Series Page 99