Rohan barked a laugh. “I knew Lolita was still in there.”
I popped my lips off the icy sugar stick and stuck my orange tongue out at him.
“Dude,” Elliot said, holding out a fist bump to Ro.
“Excuse me?” I bit into the Popsicle and Elliot flinched. “Why does he get the fist bump? He is in no way responsible.”
“Her mouth is a marvel,” Rohan added.
“Thanks, babe.”
Rohan fist bumped the kid, winking at me. “Dealer. Name. Now.”
“Candyman,” Elliot said. I boffed him across the top of the head. He rubbed it. “I’m not shitting you,” he said. “That’s the only name I know.”
“Too bad.” Rohan’s voice was cold.
“Bad for you.” Elliot pulled a switchblade out of his pocket, flicking it open. “We’re done.”
Rohan laughed, but it was dark and held no hint of humor. He disarmed Elliot in a flash, dancing the blade over his knuckles while the kid was still gaping at him. “Not ’til I say so. How do we find him?”
Elliot swallowed and stepped back from Rohan. “I’m waaay too lowly to be allowed in his presence. I deal with middle management.”
“Great.” Rohan flipped the knife into his hand, blade casually pointed at Elliot. “Describe this middle man and where we can find him.”
“That’s sexist,” Elliot said. “He’s a she.” He threw me a chin nod, like he’d just earned some level of solidarity with me.
“Hashtag feminism.” Idiot.
Five minutes later, Rohan released Elliot with a promise that if he continued dealing, their next meeting wouldn’t go so well.
“Do I get my blade back?” Elliot held out his hand.
Rohan smirked. “You wanna take it from me?”
Elliot fled.
Ro snapped the blade in half. “What a piece of shit. Guaranteed that kid would have stabbed himself with it.”
Our middle woman, Aida, was a wreta, a demon with a crescent-shaped birthmark that was mostly likely the same wreta we’d met back when we were tracking Asmodeus. She’d been close to killing off some poor guy thanks to this highly addictive hallucinatory secretion of hers. I doubted her discharge was the basis for Sweet Tooth, but there were plenty of other crimes she could answer for.
Since this demon liked to come out at night, we had a few hours to kill.
I threaded my arm through Rohan’s. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
I pointed up at the roller coaster visible from the skatepark. “It’s one of the few remaining wooden coasters in the world. You shouldn’t miss it while you’re here.”
“Okay.” Not exactly the “I’ll be around for ages and we can ride it any time” answer I’d been hoping for.
We cut through the gardens, looping around to Playland’s colorful front gates.
“Where’s the diamond?” Ro asked.
“Locked up tight in the trunk.” We’d give it to Rabbi Abrams to dispose of.
We agreed that we needed to learn if this witch or group of witches involved in binding demons was being coerced by the Brotherhood or acting of their own free will. Given the Rasha fingerprint on the metal spine that had been used to modify the gogotas that had attacked us in Prague, there was definitely a connection with our organization.
The line-up for the coaster was fiendishly long, and we couldn’t exactly discuss demons and secret societies, which was fine by me. I continued paying up the bet I’d recently lost, and recounted more of the fanfic I’d written about Ro’s band, while forced to listen to all the factual details I’d gotten incorrect. He delivered them in the driest, most professorial tone imaginable, with his editorials on the sex scenes particularly hilarious. The time flew by, and soon we were safely ensconced in the front seat of the car.
Though in Ro’s opinion, “safely” may have been a bit of a stretch. He tugged on the slender metal bar across us, the only thing keeping us from cannonballing out of the coaster. “It’s not even flush against us.” He shot me a suspicious glare. “Is this going to be like that damned mini-train in Prague?”
I snickered. The car moved forward, clacking against the wooden rails in a familiar rhythm. Slowly, it bumped its way up the first big incline, taking us higher and higher above the park. Riders on the swings flew out as if to greet us, while The Beast ride soared and dipped by our heads.
I flung my hands in the air as the car paused on the precipice. It hurtled down the tracks and I screamed, wind streaming over me. My body half-pitched over the bar, my stomach dropped into my toes, and my ass lifted off of the seat.
“Fuuuck!” Rohan gripped the safety bar, his eyes screwed closed, but his grin wide with glee.
Over and over, we climbed and plunged, every part of me bouncing and rattling. The coaster curved sideways and I slid into Rohan, jabbing his side with my hip bone.
I didn’t stop laughing until the coaster finally slowed with a jolt that snapped our heads back. I hopped out, pulling Rohan onto the platform with me. “Didja love it?”
“Not one bit,” he said, hustling me back to the start of the line.
We went three more times, until our bones clanked as badly as the coaster. I cracked my neck, inhaling axle grease and hot concrete, and pointed to a nearby trailer. “Now you may buy me mini donuts.”
“I’m gonna need a second job to feed you,” he groused.
We stepped up to the cash. “Two bags,” Ro said to the young employee. He glanced at me and added, “With extra cinnamon and sugar.”
I squeezed my boyfriend’s arm. “You’re working out just fine.”
We drove back separately that evening, Rohan beating me back to Demon Club. By the time I pulled in, he was already parked, sitting on the hood of his car, Skyping with someone.
“Your mom threw that shirt out years ago.”
I pulled up short at the Indian-accented man’s voice coming out of Ro’s phone.
Rohan clutched his T-shirt possessively. “She can keep thinking that.”
His dad laughed. “Coward. Are you coming home for the golf tournament?”
Another man, this one with a mild Irish accent chimed in. “We need you, son. Don’t leave me alone with Dev.”
“You can’t get enough of me, Liam,” his dad replied.
“You play golf?” I whispered. How many secret talents could one guy possibly have? Was this all rock stars or just Rohan being an over-achiever?
Rohan looked up from his phone. “Badly, under protest, and only for charity events.”
“Who’s that?” Dev said.
I pointed from myself to the house, trying to tiptoe away. Rohan grabbed my hand before I could escape, but I refused to be pulled into visual range.
“Nava,” Rohan said. That was a nice neutral answer, right? Nothing to tip off who I was to these people, when I had yet to meet anyone from his family because it was waaay tooo soon.
“The girlfriend!” his dad announced in glee. There was a chorus of “oooohs” from the men.
I ducked my head to hide my hot blush. Ro had told them about me?
“You’re embarrassing yourselves,” Rohan said. “Please stop.”
“Put her on,” Dev demanded.
Rohan laughed at my impersonation of a fleeing cartoon character, legs pumping. He dropped an arm over my shoulders and pulled me in front of the screen.
I smoothed down my hair and waved at the camera. “Hi.”
“You’re even lovelier than your photo,” Dev said.
I blinked. Ro had sent a photo? “Thank you. I see where Rohan gets his good looks.” His dad, mid-fifties, was incredibly handsome with his twinkling brown eyes, nice biceps, and dark hair shot with gray at the temples.
My boy was going to age well.
Dev shook his head from side-to-side. “I’m generally considered the better looking of us.”
“In your dreams, old man,” Rohan said.
“I see it,” I said, nudging Ro’s hip with mine.
“You, I like,” Dev said. “Him, not so much.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you as well, Liam,” I said to Ro’s godfather, and the source of his middle name.
Liam pressed a hand to his heart, cramming Dev to one side of the screen, a sliver of golf course visible behind them. “Ah, sure look it, she knows who I am. Nava, I too, have a son. A wonderful Irish boy with eyes like the Emerald Isle itself. He’s a doctor, working with the less fortunate.” He threw me a “what do you think?” wink and a nod.
I laughed, instantly taking to this man with his crazy shock of pale blond hair and smattering of freckles.
“Faith and Begorrah, but you’re slathering it on, Liam.” Rohan deadpanned in an Irish accent.
I grinned at him.
Onscreen, the two men nudged each other. “I like how she looks at the lad,” Liam said.
I screwed up my face, barely resisting the urge to hide behind my hair.
“Maya will be sorry she missed meeting you,” Dev said.
I praised all the gods and goddesses I could think of that I hadn’t gotten an impromptu first meeting with Rohan’s mom. That shit was going to require epic preparation. And possibly Ativan. Maya Mitra was one of my idols. An Indian-Jewish woman who’d smashed through the music industry boys’ club to become a top music producer. Whether being her only child’s girlfriend was going to make her less or more enthused about me remained to be seen.
“Is my son treating you well?” Dev fixed an expectant eye on me.
Rohan tilted his head, trying not to smirk.
“He is,” I said brightly. Then, for Rohan’s ears only I added: “Dependent on his remembrance of certain cosmically important imminent events.”
“Maybe when Rohan comes back for the tournament, you can accompany him,” Dev said.
“Great idea,” Rohan said as I gave my best non-committal smile.
The other men laughed. We said our goodbyes and hung up.
I facepalmed. Then groaned and rubbed my face. “I can’t believe you let me meet your dad and godfather with cinnamon sugar on my nose.”
“Relax.” Rohan tugged my hand away from my face. “They loved you. I know it was unexpected, but thank you for being so nice.”
I brushed the remaining sugar off my nose. “I wasn’t being nice. I liked them. Hanging with them is probably like watching a comedy routine.”
“Too true. Thanks, anyway. It means a lot to me that you get along and you don’t mind sharing me with them.”
Sure, harmony between the girlfriend and the parental units was a good thing but his words fed into the low-grade ball of unease churning me up these days. Ro had whole-heartedly always embraced who he was. It was an amazing quality and a lot of why, as a rock star, he was so passionate and such a great singer-songwriter. He’d owned every inch of his identity.
Then he’d walked away cold turkey. Yes, he’d been messed up after Asha’s death and he’d become Rasha, and those were both valid reasons, but it was like he’d totally shed something essential about himself for something else. He was a rock star until he wasn’t. Then he was a hunter. Now he was inviting me to Los Angeles and really pleased that I got along with his family. That was super sweet, but I was terrified that with his faith in the Brotherhood crumbling, our really new relationship was his latest extreme, because damn, he was just going all in at warp speed.
I fixed my ponytail. “I’m gonna take a shower before we go demon hunting. Then I’ll make us both dinner. There’s still some Chickeny Delight.”
“Yum.”
I waited.
“I’m looking forward to it.”
I waited some more.
Rohan pushed me toward the house. “Yes, I’ll make us dinner.”
I blew him a kiss, braced myself, and headed inside to pick up my show and tell. After today’s zizu visit, Dr. Gelman didn’t get to be off the radar anymore.
I wiped my palms off on my shorts and knocked on Rabbi Abram’s office door on the ground floor.
“Hello?” His voice floated out from Ms. Clara’s office.
I switched directions and pushed her door open. My Jewish Dumbledore was ransacking Ms. Clara’s desk drawers. He wore one of his many black suits, a kippah bobby-pinned to his thinning white hair.
Ms. Clara’s office was a shrine to order and symmetry, from the striking framed photos of Vancouver that were never even a millimeter crooked to her custom-made drawer organizers. “You mess up her desk, Rabbi, and she’ll kill you.”
Our resident administrator moonlighted as an in-demand dominatrix, though if Rabbi Abrams didn’t know that about her, I wasn’t going to enlighten him. Ms. Clara was currently in Jerusalem, ostensibly at a meeting of Brotherhood admins. Wild, unfulfilled sexual tension with Tree Trunk, a.k.a. Baruch Ya’ari, weapons specialist and my adored mentor and friend who was based there at Brotherhood HQ, was a totally secondary agenda.
Rabbi Abrams stroked his longish, white beard with gnarled fingers. “Help me find my Kit Kats, Navela. A good Kosher treat.”
The faint smell of butterscotch wrapped around him so he’d already dipped into the candy today. “No way. I got the run-down. Diabetes runs in your family.”
“Et tu, Brute?”
I dropped my glance to my feet, ashamed.
“What’s wrong?” He squinted at the hard cannonball saxophone case in my hand, containing all my evidence that I’d retrieved from upstairs. “What is that?”
I perched on the edge of the seat across the desk from him and motioned for him to sit. “I have some stuff to catch you up on.”
He lowered his ancient, frail body into Ms. Clara’s Aeron chair. “And you think I need to be seated?” He chuckled, his laughter dying off at my somber expression, and nodded for me to continue.
I lay the large sax case across my lap, fiddling with the clasps.
“Tell me.”
So I did. It wasn’t exactly Once Upon a Time, but there were plenty of monsters. It had all started when we’d been in Prague tracking Samson King to prove he was a demon and not just an A-list celebrity. Rabbi Abrams had confirmed that Ari was still an initiate but the regular Brotherhood induction ritual hadn’t worked so he’d told me to contact Dr. Gelman, also visiting the city for a physics conference.
Dr. Gelman had a way to induct Ari and we’d had a couple meetings. During one of them, she’d slipped me a swirled green glass amulet, fairly unremarkable except for the etching of a hamsa on the inside.
Soon after, I’d been attacked by a gogota demon sporting the spiffy new modification of a metal spine. Kind of like stegosaurus spikes attached to its back that made it harder to hit its kill spot. The demon had been gunning for me, crying “Vashar!” which I later learned was the amulet’s name. When I went to see Dr. Gelman, her hotel room was trashed and gogota slime crusted the curtains. She’d gone off-grid after that, contacting me once via letter with the instructions for the induction ritual. I’d been trying to find her ever since.
Demons weren’t team players at the best of times, and they certainly weren’t going to aid and abet the Brotherhood. The only way the gogota had come after me was because it was bound and forced to do someone’s bidding. I’d still had to prove it though, so I’d traded a demonic dog collar for the actual gogota demon that had attacked Dr. Gelman, since I’d killed the one that had gone after me. Then I’d tracked down a spell to test for magic signatures. Magic came in three colors: red for witches, pink for Rasha, and blue for demons and this spell let the caster determine which had been used on an object.
There were no traces of magic on the metal spine, meaning the modification had been manual not magic. However, Rohan had dusted the spine for prints and come up with a partial print matching a Rasha, now deceased, called Ferdinand Alves. When we’d tested the gogota itself, however, the spell revealed purple magic.
The spell also turned a yaksas horn that had come from Rohan’s Askuchar mission in Pakistan purple. That assignment had been brutal wit
h the entire village being slaughtered and the Brotherhood ordering Ro and the other Rasha to burn the bodies and destroy the evidence. The attacks hadn’t made sense; gogota were simple demons who wouldn’t think big picture enough to care about an amulet that stopped Rasha induction rituals, and the yaksas’ assault had been too targeted and out of their normal hunting ground to fall within a normal pattern for them. Factor in a witch binding demons, however, and you got a simple, plausible solution.
Rabbi Abrams listened without interruption to my story, his face growing whiter than his hair.
I faltered a couple of times, concerned the man was going to croak, but I continued through to the grand finale of the ticking clock prophecy. I’d opened the sax case and spread the spine, the gogota’s fingertip, and the fragment of horn out on the desk. “Rohan already has the name of the Rasha whose print it was. He’s investigating that angle but I need to find Dr. Gelman. I need her help to figure out who this witch is. I was hoping you’d talk to her sister and find out–”
“You think my Executive is behind this?” Rabbi Abrams touched his finger to a metal spike with a shaking hand. “That they would deliberately send demons to destroy an innocent village? Demons that need no encouragement to be bloodthirsty?”
I bit my lip. “I didn’t say–”
He spun his chair around, his back to me.
I waited, hoping he just needed a moment to digest all of this, but no, I’d been dismissed. Out in the corridor, I pressed my forehead into the cool plaster, wondering if I’d just made a horrible mistake.
5
“What a dump.” I rubbed gum off the bottom of my shoe, standing in the doorway to the empty back room in the run-down diner that Elliot had sworn was the only place he’d ever met up with Aida.
As we stepped into the main part of the restaurant, my stomach lurched at the smell of rancid frying oil. Two guys in blue mechanic’s overalls sat in one of the booths, but the rest of the ten tables were unoccupied. Faded B-movie posters hung on beige walls in need of repainting.
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter_Crave Page 6