The Unlikeable Demon Hunter_Crave

by Deborah Wilde

  He had no idea.

  9

  Cars clogged the curb in front of my parents’ house.

  “Two o’clock,” Rohan said. “We’re being glared at.”

  Mrs. Jepson’s curtains twitched, but not before we caught a glimpse of her trademark floral apron.

  I nudged Ace. “Twenty bucks says she finally has an aneurysm about the cars blocking her curb.”

  Ari snorted. “She’s been promising that for years. We’re not that lucky.”

  The cedar and stained glass front door was ajar. We stepped inside, a loud hum of chatter and Céline Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” swamping us, and were immediately approached by a caterer bearing a tray of champagne.

  “Why yes, thanks.” I helped myself to a flute. Ari, Rohan, and I clinked glasses. “Get Dad off music duty.”

  Ari grabbed one more champagne flute. “On it.”

  Two other servers circulated with hors d’oeuvres. I examined their offerings before committing to the order of appetizer consumption.

  “Your birthday dinner is catered?” Rohan said.

  “But of course.” My parents always used the same caterers. Their cheesy zucchini mini quiche were a special treat and I helped myself to two. “I’ll make it up to you later.”

  “For what?”

  “So many things.” I laughed bitterly. “Just remember that I have no expectations of you playing nice with my family.”

  “How bad could this be?”

  “It’s like being disemboweled. You expect it’ll be bad, but until you’ve experienced it you can’t actually fathom its awful depths.” I ran my hands down his arms. “I appreciate you being here.”

  “Sparky, be it demons or family members, I’ve got your back.”

  I exhaled. “Okay. Game time.” I dragged him through the foyer, down the hallway past the grids of framed family photos, and into the living room, opened for this momentous occasion.

  The crush of people helped a bit with the room’s general soullessness, though most of them wore black, so they kind of blended into the black-and-white brocade wallpaper.

  One of the caterers cleared away the drinks and empty small plates strewn over the modular coffee table.

  “Whoa.” Rohan slowed as the packed room turned and stared at our entrance.

  “Wait for it,” I muttered. “Blue rinse on your nine.”

  “Nava!” A tiny freight train of a woman with a blue-tinted perm barreled toward us. She air-kissed my cheek, bestowing birthday greetings, and then turned her gossip-attuned eye on Rohan. “Are you one of the security boys that Nava does secretarial work for?”

  I choked on my quiche.

  Rohan patted my back with one hand while extending his other to shake. “Rohan. Pleasure to meet you.”

  “Ellen Tannery. I’m Associate Dean of Dov’s Law Department.”

  I wiped my mouth with the cocktail napkin. “Rohan’s my boyfriend.”

  “Really?” Another women turned with a prim sniff. Awesome, my mom’s aunt Alexia had arrived. Ro got full credit for only giving the mildest startled blink at her overly made-up face with her botoxed forehead that wouldn’t move with a dynamite blast to the face, and her collagen-injected lips that she swore were merely “good genes.”

  The Michael Bolton song playing cut out, replaced by Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You.” Praise unto Ari.

  Alexia waved at Rohan with an asparagus tip. “This handsome young man is really your boyfriend?”

  “Will wonders never cease?” I said in a tight voice.

  Thus began the Parade of Making Nice, involving Rohan and I circulating from group to group while I smiled through a litany of backhanded insults on my professional status from my parents’ faculty friends and blatant disbelief on my love life from my family members. No, that’s not fair. There were family members that combined both, like my half-deaf great uncle Moishe, holding court in Dad’s recliner, who repeated his slights in a voice only slightly quieter than a stadium announcer’s.

  Ro was shell-shocked by the time we’d navigated the room once. “These people are horrible.”

  “Yeah. Come on, Snowflake.” I tugged on his hand. “You’ve done your time. I’m pronouncing you officially freed for good behavior. Leo will have corralled our friends in the TV room. You’ll be safe there.”

  I led Rohan past the charcuterie table first so he could load up on protein because his left eyebrow was twitching, generally a sign he was starving. Though it might also have been PTSD. I shoved a small plate into his hands then waved discreetly at Ari, his elbow caught in a death grip by one of mom’s co-workers. He had the same pained expression on his face he always did when she tried to set him up with her douchebag son. I tipped my head to the door to let him know we were making our escape.

  Leo, bless her heart, took one look at Ro and stuffed her highball into his hand. “Start now and keep up a steady intake,” she said. “It’ll make this night go much easier.”

  He tossed the drink back. “Can’t we just go fight demons?”

  “What do you think we’ve been doing for the past hour?” I grabbed another champagne flute from a passing server and chugged it down.

  “Going to greet the parents now?” Leo asked.

  I shoved the empty glass in her hand. “Wish me luck.”

  I caught my dad sneaking back into the home office, his phone in his hand. He’d dressed up for the occasion, which meant replacing his sweater vest with a plaid button-down shirt that had been ironed to within an inch of its life. “Freeze.”

  He stilled mid-reach for the docking system plugged into the house-wide speakers. “You don’t even know what I’m going to play.”

  “Steve Miller’s greatest hits.”

  He blinked owlishly at me. “Are you psychic?”

  “I can see your screen.”

  “They’re classics.” He huffed. “Besides, you don’t have time to worry about music. Go talk more with all your guests.”

  “Oh, sure.” I planted my hands on my hips. “Should I go slip into my Handmaid’s Tale robe now? Because secretary at a security firm, really, Dad? Uncle Izzy already mansplained how I need to find a nice Jewish boy and get married now that all my dance mishegoss is done with. Haven’t heard that one since last Hanukkah, so it was just swell to be told that if I found the right Executive to work for my M.R.S. was assured.”

  “Sweetheart, no one was going to believe the girl who spent the past year racking up temp jobs was hired for any type of actual security position. Be logical.”

  I logically wanted to brain him with his phone. I placed my hand on my diaphragm, using a breathing technique from tap to calm the fuck down. “Happy birthday to me.”

  “Always. What does a clam do on his birthday?”

  I exhaled, rolling back my shoulders and visibly bracing myself for the groaner to come. Dad said so many of the wrong things, but he was the first one with a joke to make light of a situation.

  I was my father. Kill me now.

  “You ready? Can you take it?” Dad asked.

  “I’ve been training. I’m in pretty peak freaking shape. Hit me. What does a clam do on his birthday?”

  “He shellabrates. Ba-dum. Tshh.” He mimed hitting a drum set.

  “Wow.” I was totally telling that to Ari.

  He kissed the side of my head. “Go find your mother. Someone spilled Merlot on her blouse and she’s having a clothing crisis about what to change into.”

  We exchanged wry grins. Mom didn’t cope well with on-the-fly decisions.

  “Going. Stay away from the music or you’ll remember what magic powers I do have.”

  I knocked on my mother’s bedroom door before pushing it open with an “All hail the birthday girl.”

  Mom stood in a black pencil skirt and black camisole, a variety of tasteful black blouses arrayed on the bed. She frowned at my blue dress, running a hand over her honey-blonde bob. “Really, Nava. Haven’t you and Ari outgrown that ridiculous show of p
etulance?” She dropped her hand. “Dear God. What happened to your chin?”

  I blushed, cupping my hand over it. I’d thought the ton of concealer I’d used had done the trick since no one else had commented, but Mom had X-ray vision when it came to finding my flaws. “Demon,” I mumbled.

  She tsked me. “What’s done is done.”

  I kissed her cheek. “Lovely to see you, too, Mom. What’s the problem? Having trouble choosing between black and slightly less black?”

  “I had a perfectly good blouse, but your cousin Shauna spilled wine on it.” She fiddled with her tasteful gold chain. “I swear that women has nothing better to do than hold a grudge.”

  I flung her closet door open. “Since it’s a party…” In theory. “Here.” I pulled out the brightest shirt I could find: a jade green number with its tags still on.

  “Your father bought me that.” She raked a critical eye over it. “I think the color would make me look a bit… desperate.”

  “You’re right. If you put it on, everyone would be like ‘cougar it down a notch.’”

  She laughed. “You’re the payback my mother warned me about. Go enjoy your party. I’ll be down momentarily.”

  Duty done, I fled back to the TV room.

  Rohan patted the seat next to him and I gratefully sank into his embrace. “You want another drink?” he said.

  “Yes, but no. My mom has enough ammunition for tonight.”

  Leo sat down on top of me. I sniffed her neck for her Sexy Ruby perfume. “Ooh, smell me, baby.” She draped her arms around my neck and smooched my cheek.

  Ro put his hand on my knee. “That’s mine.”

  Leo made a raspberry noise. “I pre-date you.” She swung her legs onto his lap. “But if you’re good, I’ll share.”

  Rohan winked at her. “I’m very good.”

  Leo leaned back against me. “How good? On a scale of one to ten with one being a pleasant foot massage and ten being Ricky Whittle banging me senseless on the glass elevator going up the outside of the CN Tower?”

  Ro cough-laughed.

  “What?” she said. “TMI?”

  “More oddly specific,” he replied.

  I tugged on Leo’s hair. “Plus, I’m the only one you’re supposed to objectify tonight.”

  “Right.” She mouthed “We’ll talk later” at Ro.

  “Can I get you ladies anything?” he said. Leo requested some more goat cheese-stuffed figs and Ro left.

  “You didn’t invite Drio?” I asked.

  “I did. He said he was too jetlagged.”

  Or was he still hurt? I didn’t say anything to Leo because I didn’t want to make her mad and have her drain me dry. I pushed her off me. “Your free trial of my goods has ended. You want me to put out? Sign up. Very attractive lease rates.”

  “Eh. I’m gonna shop around.” She hopped up and straightened her silver velvety sundress, her plethora of silver jewelry tinkling. “Wait here.” She skipped off, returning a moment later carrying a large gift.

  I ripped open the envelope to find a little kid’s card. A “Now you are 2!” button fell out. Leo had added a “one” in red crayon. That explained the button Ari had pinned to his shirt. Inside the card, she’d written “About time you were my friend again, dummy.” She’d covered one side of the card in heart stickers.

  “I love you, Leo.”

  She nudged my shoulder. “Love you, too. Open it.”

  I tore into the gift. “No way. You remembered.”

  Leo and I used to go see movies all the time, often at this odd little mall downtown that most people only went to for either the theater or the Japanese dollar store. But there was also this art gallery featuring a lot of local artists that we’d hang out in while waiting for our movie to start. The art was weird and wonderful, from pastel portraits of cute monsters to vivid paintings involving fractured fairy tale tableaux. My favorite artist was Camilla D’Errico, who painted these doe-eyed anime girls. One had an octopus hanging off her head, another painting featured a unicorn-horned girl emerging from a Technicolor sea.

  Leo had bought me one of D’Errico’s framed prints of Neo New York, this Blade Runner-type cityscape. A girl with a hot pink umbrella stood downcast in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the city. I’d always said I’d buy it as soon as I had my own place.

  I tackled her in a hug until she proclaimed that I was suffocating her, then I slid the painting behind the sofa so no one spilled anything on it. “Hey, can I ask you a work question?”

  She pinned my button on me. “I haven’t heard anything about Candyman.”

  “Not that. Ever heard of an oshk?”

  Leo laughed. “Where’d you hear that urban legend?”

  “Not so legendy. I saw one.”

  Leo looked skeptical. “Oshk is the bogeyman of demons. It’s what mommy and daddy demons tell baby demons when they’re bad. Bad in the wrong ways for demons.”

  “I never thought about demon parenting,” I said.

  “It leaves a lot to be desired.” She scratched her cheek. “Shit. That might explain why some of the demons in town seem to have disappeared.”

  “I’d noticed. Eaten?”

  “Or took off.”

  “Do oshk hurt people?”

  “It’s only the one. The oshk is a Unique. But no on the hurting people. Not that I’ve ever heard.”

  I hoped this wasn’t a first-time-for-everything scenario.

  Citrus perfume teased my senses as a woman pressed into my side. My cousin Yael, my favorite family member after Ari. “Who’s the hottie?”

  I pushed aside her explosive corkscrew curls that I’d envied most of my life to kiss her cheek. “Which one?”

  All three of us looked at Ro, Ari, and Kane, chatting in a corner. Rephrase. Ro was chatting with them both. Ari and Kane were standing stiffly in the same general vicinity.

  “Start with the one Ari is obviously desperate for.”

  Leo laughed and stood up. “Good to see you again, Yael.”

  My cousin beamed up at her. “You too, pipsqueak.”

  Leo went to join the guys while I examined my cousin. “How do you make middle-age look so hot?”

  “I’m thirty-three, asshole.” She ran a hand over the gray tank dress she wore. “Also, I have good genes.”

  I shuddered. “You better hope you didn’t inherit those, because you’ll be playing tetherball with that rack of yours when you hit fifty. Where’s the monster?”

  “With the sperm donor.” Her expression darkened at the mention of her ex.

  “I bet you have photos.”

  Yael pulled out her phone so fast, she almost brained me with her elbow. She scrolled through each of the hundred photos of her seven-year-old daughter, complete with detailed explanation of what Rachel was doing in each one.

  I lasted for about eighteen photos before smothering myself with a pillow.

  She pulled the phone away. “You made it through about four photos longer this time. Wow, you’re all mature and shit.” She elbowed me. “Now spill.”

  That was all the prompting I needed to give up the gossip between Ari and Kane. Yael knew the truth about what Ari and I did, had known even before he’d hidden out at her place to avoid a repeat of another demon getting to him before his powers had become active.

  She rubbed her hands together. “I’m going to make him miserable. But first I plan on interrogating your boyfriend. The one you failed to mention you were dating.”

  “Ari. That rat.”

  My brother must have heard us because he smirked and raised his glass in cheers.

  Yael stood up, and I scrambled to my feet. “What would it take to keep you away from him?”

  She’d terrified Cole with her inquisition. Granted he was young and nowhere near as arrogant as Snowflake, but I didn’t want Rohan to freak out.

  She stroked her chin. “You really like him, don’t you?”

  “No shit, considering I’m dating him.”

  “M
ore than that. Okay. I’ll stand down. For now.” She broke into an evil cackle.

  “You’ll also give me my present.”

  Her cackle got eviler, but she handed me a small gift bag.

  I peered inside. “Smutty fridge magnet poetry. How thoughtful.”

  “Since you’ll soon be old enough to have sex for the first time,” she said. I snorted. “I’m imparting the sage wisdom of how important communication in the bedroom is.”

  I flipped the box over to check out the example tiles. “‘Body spank want wet.’ Yes, I anticipate this facilitating mature and reflective conversations around intimacy.”

  We cracked up.

  My mother entered in one of the black blouses to announce that dinner had been laid out in the dining room. The green one would have really lit her up. Why did I bother? The laughter died on my lips.

  Yael nudged me. “Not worth it.”

  “Damn straight.” I pasted a smile on my face.

  The meal went by without incident. Since it was a buffet, people were free to eat anywhere, so I loaded up my plate and went back into the TV room.

  I’d been stopped by more people wanting to say hello, so I was the last one back. Someone had arranged the seating into a loose circle around the coffee table. I took the last empty chair between Leo and Rohan. Yael sat sandwiched between Kane and Ari on the sofa.

  “You know.” Kane stabbed at a piece of rotini in pesto-artichoke sauce. “You two being born today makes a lot of sense.”

  I swallowed my grilled salmon. It was covered in a mustard-maple syrup vinaigrette I was considering getting a dipping bowl full of, next go around. “Why? Because we’re Geminis and twins?”

  “Laaaame,” Leo said.

  “No, smarty pants.” Kane smirked. “Because every Gemini I’ve ever known has been stubborn as hell.”

  “So true! These two especially.” Yael scooped up some roasted fingerling potatoes. “The stories I could tell.” Which of course she did, though thankfully they were the tame ones.

  Ro caught my eye during the tale of me at age six telling my dad that I “rejected his rational opinion in favor of my own.” “I find that so hard to believe,” he said.

  “I know.” I pushed the plate away, rubbing my full belly. “I’m so easygoing. You’re truly blessed with my low maintenance.”