The Unlikeable Demon Hunter_Crave

by Deborah Wilde

  My Brotherhood phone rang with the “Imperial Death March” theme, assigned to all secret society numbers.

  “Hello?”

  “Ms. Katz.”

  I slapped the stereo button off. “Hello, Rabbi Mandelbaum.”

  Rohan cut me a wary look and I shrugged.

  “What have you done since our last conversation in regards to stopping Candyman?” the rabbi asked.

  “Our last conversation that was only two days ago?”

  “Yes. I assume you are investigating right now and that you aren’t merely going out for brunch with your boyfriend?”

  I frantically motioned for Rohan to veer past the Arthur Lang Bridge leading to the airport because Mandelbaum was tracking us. This was a bullshit phone call designed to let me know he could get to me. “We’re following up on some of the lab equipment we found at the house. Whether it was purchased or stolen. There might be something that leads us back to the demon.”

  There was nothing. We’d sent Drio down this road yesterday while we planned our Orlando mission. All the pieces were too widely available; even cattle prods could be purchased on Amazon.

  “Don’t waste Rohan’s time. He’s too valuable a Rasha.” Mandelbaum hung up.

  I shoved my Brotherhood phone in the glove compartment.

  Rohan found a security-patrolled lot and paid for parking, while I called for a taxi on my burner to take us to the airport. Ro borrowed the phone to call Drio to let him know where both the car and the spare key were, so he could drive the Shelby around and it didn’t sit in one place for hours. Brotherhood-issued phones automatically sent out locations after twenty-four hours of inactivity, in case a Rasha needed to be rescued.

  Rohan would rather get a root canal than let anyone drive his car, so whatever had bonded these two had bonded them but good.

  The cabbie had turned off the main road to one of the hangers near the south terminal before I spoke. “I hate Boris Badenov.”

  “I know, sweetheart,” Ro said. “But you have to let him keep underestimating you.”

  I pulled my seatbelt away from my chest like I needed room to breathe. “It’s not a matter of ‘let.’ There’s nothing I can do that would make him see my worth.”

  Except taking him down. He’d see it then.

  The cabbie pulled up to a private terminal not far from the Flying Beaver, which was this cool pub on the water with views of the floatplanes. We grabbed our one small carry-on and the cardboard box with the packing supplies.

  Rohan paid him and we walked directly on to the ramp where the private jet Ro had chartered awaited us.

  “I am so turned on right now,” I said.

  Carlos, our steward for the journey, greeted us. He checked the tickets on Ro’s phone, ensured we had our passports for customs when we landed in the U.S. and gave us the tour of the jet. There was a lounge with a large screen TV and DVD system and a telecommunications center. He got us settled in, saying that drinks and a choice of hot meals would be available after take-off.

  Ro made himself comfortable on the couch while I paced the plane. “Did you find Mandelbaum’s timing suspicious?” I said. “Why would he phone when we were headed for the airport?”

  “He couldn’t know. Only the three of us did.”

  “Yeah.” I did another lap.

  “Nava. Drio didn’t tell him.”

  I stopped. “I honestly don’t think he did, but we had our phones. Could they be listening in to our conversations even if we’re not on the phone?” I wasn’t worried about that on this flight since we’d left them in Ro’s car which Drio was going to take back to the house.

  I was however, extremely worried about what Orwell might have overheard up to this point.

  “You’re being paranoid,” he said.

  “Justifiably paranoid.”

  Carlos entered the cabin to tell us to get ready for take-off and we strapped in.

  Keyed up though I was, when the engines rumbled to life and the jet sped down the run-away, my stomach still flipped in exhilaration. It was a fairly smooth ascent and soon we were cruising comfortably at altitude and able to move around.

  I signed on to the secret email that Kane had set up for me, swearing it was safe from prying eyes, and called Rohan over to review the blueprints and dossier we’d compiled on the owner of the painting.

  Rabbi Paskow had served the New York chapter for forty years before retiring to the sunny climes of Orlando, where he lived with his wife in a gated community on a golf course. His son and three grandchildren still lived in Queens, and the rabbi and his wife were currently on their yearly visit up north.

  We wouldn’t encounter them, but we still had to get into the alarmed and monitored house in full view of all neighbors and community security. The easiest solution would have been for Kane to stage an alarm issue that we could have responded to, but he was busy with his mission, so no hacking job for us.

  We didn’t have time to match the uniforms of the groundskeepers but we did have two things: Ms. Clara, who had access to the rabbi’s cell number, and a Florida-based minion who owed Malik a favor. Neither Rohan nor I were happy about the latter part of the plan, but desperate times.

  Before we’d even landed in Houston for the first leg of our flight, Lackey Demon had burst a pipe feeding into the rabbi’s home. The water line fed in to the laundry room so hopefully the damage would be minimal. Drio had called it in at an appointed time, then after the agreed-upon waiting period I’d phoned Rabbi Paskow, who’d already been notified by the community’s management company. I said I was from the restoration company and I needed authorization to enter his premises to assess the damage.

  He’d promised to call the clubhouse immediately to let main gate security know to expect us. Our entire plan was dependent upon the snail’s pace of all bureaucracy. When my family had had a flood, the restoration company hadn’t been called until the next day. I was counting on a similar procedure here–that they’d be so focused on containing the leak and fixing the pipe that they wouldn’t have called the restoration company themselves.

  The plan was held together with metaphoric Scotch Tape and a prayer, and there were more places it could derail than not, but Malik had given me an impossible timeframe and I needed to find whoever was behind the purple magic.

  The walk to the rental car from the airport terminal in Orlando was short but with the humidity here, it was like walking through a swamp in scuba gear. I was sticky by the time we reached the Corolla. Once we cleared the rental lot, we pried off the stickers on the rearview mirror and windows that the company used to track the cars in and out of the lot. Driving up in an obvious rental would have given us away.

  We didn’t see much from the highway beyond some strip malls, lots of entrances to gated communities, and even more palm trees, though it was a lot greener than I’d expected.

  When the security guard at the gate took the identification into the booth, I tensed. We’d doctored them up yesterday with Photoshop and a laminate machine. All she did was check it against something on her computer, hand them back, and give us directions to the rabbi’s house before lifting the gate.

  Billboards on an undeveloped area of the grounds advertised homes starting at $300,000, which wouldn’t buy you a shoebox condo in Vancouver proper, but got you a pretty swank place here. Like Rabbi Paskow’s: a yellow villa-style home set back a couple of blocks from the golf course that was a decent size for two people but not enormous. A spectacular pink bougainvillea dominated the front yard.

  Workers milled about outside. Rohan and I approached the one woman in business casual who was supervising, correctly guessing she was from the management company. We introduced ourselves, presenting business cards with fake names from the area’s largest restoration company. She was a bit flustered that the rabbi had called someone in before she’d had a chance, but we brazened it out and someone else soon claimed her attention.

  Other than the fact that she could later describe a
brown-skinned man and white-skinned woman, any other details would be wrong. Rohan and I had both put in brown contacts after we’d disembarked. He’d styled his hair into the most boring cubicle drone look to go with his khakis and plaid shirt and I wore a wig of short, straight, light brown hair.

  We didn’t bother taking down the Rasha ward around the house. Theft and tampering was bad enough, we didn’t want the rabbi left open to an actual demon attack.

  My blouse was sticking to me by the time we snapped on latex gloves, grabbed all necessary supplies and got inside into the air conditioning. Framed prints of grapes and Province pastoral scenes hung on pale yellow walls, with sandstone tile and floral print-furniture rounding out the decor. Fresh flowers sat in brightly colored hand-blown glass vases on fussy side tables, making the place smell like a hothouse.

  The damage in the laundry room was minimal. One small corner had flooded, so we cleaned it up and lugged the industrial fan we’d rented inside to dry it out. The sanitation engineers hadn’t had to open the concrete floor inside, which was good because we were alone in the house.

  We didn’t have to snoop for long. There was only one original painting in the place, which hung in the rabbi’s cluttered study on a shadowed wall away from any damaging sunlight. I turned on the small spotlight to see it better. A small plaque mounted next to the painting read “The Birth of Our Prince.”

  Upon first glance, it was the unlikely subject matter of the birth of Jesus. A raven-haired woman, her coarse features twisted, gave birth in a manger, the night sky twinkling with stars beyond the open manger door. Except she had black wings with edges like razors, so unless Mary had had a few additions that no one else had seen fit to document, this wasn’t her.

  A man wearing a crown kneeled beside her, his face etched with grief. The baby he held in his blood-soaked hands, still connected to the woman by a thick, purple umbilical cord glistening with fluid, was a monstrosity. It had three heads: an ogre, a ram, and a bull.

  “Rohan!”

  He came running at my screech, bringing the cardboard box and a small pouch with the pliers and screwdriver. “What?” All I could do was point at the painting. “Asmodeus?” Rohan dropped the stuff onto the rabbi’s desk, but didn’t tear his eyes off the artwork. “Does Malik know you killed Asmodeus? Is this some kind of message?”

  “It didn’t come up in conversation but Malik makes it his business to know things and Ari is a topic near and dear to him these days. It’s possible he knows what happened.”

  Malik hadn’t lied about painting this because his signature was legible in the corner. But of all the paintings in all the world, why have me get this one?

  “Who are Asmodeus’ parents?” I said. “Who would come after me for killing their son?”

  Rohan didn’t know either, but there was someone who might. It was worth the long distance charges on my burner. “Rabbi Abrams?” he said. “Nava and I need your help.” He described the painting to the rabbi, providing specific details at the rabbi’s prompting. Rohan’s expression grew grimmer and grimmer. “Yes, Rabbi. Thank you.”

  “Holy Hell.” He rubbed his fist against his temple and I tugged on his sleeve. “Malik intended for us to know this. It’s going to open a Pandora’s box.”

  “Why?” I was vibrating.

  “The raven-haired woman is the demon Mahlat. See this?” He pointed to a genie’s lamp tossed on a bale of hay to one side. “According to certain Kabbalistic legends, Mahlat was put into a vessel like this and locked in these cliffs on the Dead Sea by King Solomon.”

  “So that’s Solomon?”

  Rohan shook his head and touched what looked like a tiny baby’s hat with very long strings, woven from rope.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Rohan traced his finger along the protective glass to point out a rock that had rolled slightly away from a larger pile. “It’s a slingshot.”

  “That’s King David?!” I twisted my gold ring, with its engraved hamsa that marked me as Rasha, as if it could ward off this information. “No. He can’t be Asmodeus’ father. He formed the Brotherhood to stop demons, not birth them.”

  Rohan pried the painting off the wall, and flipped it over, removing the glass. He held out his hand, and like an operating room nurse, I placed the screwdriver in it. He made short work of the staples then carefully pried the canvas away from the large outside frame.

  As it slid free, an orange flame-shape slithered from between the frame and the canvas. No heat emanated from it and no sparks cracked as it wound itself around Rohan’s chest. He slashed at it with his finger blades, but as I’d learned from Ari’s shadow magic, that wasn’t a thing.

  The painting thudded to the thick area rug at my feet.

  Part of the flame creature reared up like the head of a cobra at me, so I bombarded it with magic. The crackling voltage passed through it harmlessly, but my presumption in attacking pissed the thing right off. It settled on Rohan like an anaconda, squeezing hard enough to bug his eyes out. The flaminess of it was similar to one of the magic types that marids possessed but this wasn’t a demon. More like… a trap.

  I couldn’t fire because the only thing my magic would hurt was my boyfriend and I wasn’t done with him yet. I scrabbled for a hold on it, fear making my fingers clunky.

  Grabbing at flames: also not a thing.

  I ended up grabbing Ro’s shoulders, elbow deep in this entity that seeped into my skin like a toxic spill. My flesh split and reddened with burn lesions bulging with pus.

  Rohan was turning blue, his thrashing growing weaker.

  There was no way to fight and my flight instincts were screaming at me, so I grabbed the painting in one hand and yanked on Rohan. Magic bloomed inside me, not the white hot crackle of electricity, but a slow sensual unfurling of something more primordial.

  The world shifted. The library disappeared, replaced by the shadow of the palm tree in the rabbi’s backyard that we now stood under.

  Rohan gulped air down. His shirt was torn, his torso and arms a mass of bluish-purple bruises overlaid on blistered, burned skin.

  I dropped to his side, ignoring the searing burn from the blistering mess running from my elbows to my fingertips and the melted latex on my hands. I patted him down, checking for injuries, but before I could ask him if he was okay, he jerked away and in a voice laced with dread asked, “What are you?”

  14

  What are you? Rohan’s question rang ’round and ’round in my head. Why hadn’t his first reaction been to have my back? Or a simple “Thanks, Nava. So glad I’m not dead.” Was he scared of me now?

  I stared out the plane’s window, flexing my gauze-encased fingers, the skin pulling tight over my knuckles. I can’t imagine what Carlos thought when we returned all beaten up, but he’d provided a first aid kit and dressed our burns. I’m sure charter jet employees were paid for their discretion.

  I’d always been different from the other Rasha, just by the fact of being female. If I had magic abilities that they didn’t, why did that matter? Was Rohan viewing me differently now?

  The leather couch squeaked as Rohan sat down beside me. “Are we going to talk about this?” He was still hoarse from the attack.

  I shrugged, keeping my focus on the clouds.

  “Will you please look at me?”

  I stared at him, impassive.

  He pressed an ice pack to his ribs, his shirtless torso a mass of pulpy bruises. Luckily, the burns were healing quickly. “What I said. I didn’t mean–it came out wrong.”

  “Ah. So you don’t think I’m a freak among freaks?”

  “No. But you aren’t like the rest of us, either.” He shifted stiffly and winced. “Our powers don’t grow stronger over time, but you keep getting layers.”

  “That’s on my trainers for their failure to know the full spectrum of my electric magic.”

  “Maybe. But you portalled us. That’s not connected to your magic.”

  Like I hadn’t been circling bac
k to that for the past six hours.

  I headed to the telecommunications center at the far end of the jet. Every step sent fresh hell blazing down my injured arms. I traced my finger over the canvas, but the delicate brush strokes had no further secrets to yield. “Ari portals.”

  “Ari shadow transports. It’s at least connected to his magic. Though, after this afternoon, I can’t help wonder if that ability is a result of your twin thing and you not being tested in the first place. That he can do it because you can.”

  He wasn’t the only one wondering that.

  “Did you know?” Rohan stood directly behind me.

  The painting was rich with shadow, but Malik had captured pools of light, a certain radiance affiliated with holy births and moments of awe that was both chilling and captivating in this context. But then, that was that marid for you. “Know what?”

  “That you could portal.”

  I spun around, fists clenched. “Hell, yeah. I’m also waiting for the right moment to spring my invisibility and flight on you.” I shoved past him but he caught me by the waist in a gentle hold.

  He tossed the ice pack onto the table. “I’m sorry. Please talk to me. This is upsetting you way more than it should.”

  I didn’t want to talk to him. His words after I’d rescued us still stung. I could pull away, slam my walls up, and let him stew. Hello, comfort zone.

  It was so tempting, but scary as it was to break that pattern, I didn’t want to be that person anymore. I couldn’t be, not in this relationship. I bowed my head, silently repeating the words until I had the courage to say them aloud.

  “What if I’m a witch?” I helped myself to a Coke from the small tray of drinks that Carlos had left out for us so I didn’t have to face him as I spoke. “Because if I am a witch, I’m not Rasha.”

  “Technically, Rasha are kind of mini-witches. Witches lite.” Rohan planted himself in front of me, tipping my chin up to meet his gaze. “You’d be better than Rasha.”

  I doubted that. The snag in my hypothesis was that my magic signature wasn’t red and neither Dr. Gelman nor Sienna had pegged me as a witch, so if I was one, I was a pretty pathetic shadow of one. No longer unique, merely one of a multitude–and a half-assed one at that. I ran my unburned thumb along the edge of the tab. “Right. The Brotherhood would totally see me as better.”