The Unlikeable Demon Hunter_Crave

by Deborah Wilde

  It was my turn to drop my head in my hands, my heart breaking for him. “How long were you together?”

  “Five years.”

  From the moment I’d met Drio and Rohan, I’d been obsessed with knowing their history. Their big bomb of a secret. Now, I’d do anything not to know because I knew how this ended.

  “I killed her.”

  I flinched at the words fired like gunshots. “No. Demons killed her because Ro was too fucked up from fame and he wasn’t there for her.”

  Drio laughed harshly. “Asha announced she was coming to live with me in Rome. I had other ideas. For me, the thrill of the hunt was the greatest rush in the world. After two years, I’d become one of the best hunters. One of the most addicted. It was a high that being tied in one place to a long-term girlfriend couldn’t compare to.” He rested his head against the concrete wall, turning the phone over and over in his hands. “I’d given her some bullshit excuse about the importance of the mission to keep her away.” Drio didn’t look at me as he spoke, each new detail striking a blow into my heart at what they’d all suffered. “Ro found out and we had a huge fight. He said if I wasn’t going to treat his cousin properly I didn’t get to have her, and he told her the truth.”

  “He had no right.” Rohan had said he’d gotten cruel. That his opinion of himself had been arrogantly off-the-charts. Fame might have been the cause, but Asha was the tragic consequence. That didn’t mean it was anyone’s fault other than the demon’s.

  I curled my fingers into my palms so I didn’t reach out for him. Drio wouldn’t want my sympathy. “Your flash stepping,” I said. “It’s because you run into danger.”

  “It’s because the moment I became Rasha, I was running away from her.” His voice was thick with self-loathing.

  “Did you still love her?” He glared at me for even having dared asked that. “Exactly. And you’d stayed with her those first two years of hunting. That’s not running, Drio. Trust me, I know what is.”

  Hope flashed across his face, but he shook it off. “Asha flew to Rome to confront me but Mandelbaum said all the right things to keep me hopped up, fighting the good fight, and I told her to go home. I’d make time for her later.” His voice cracked in pain. He exhaled. “I guess the demon I was hunting spied us together. She got to Asha, then disappeared. Asha…” He pressed his lips together. “Asha is dead.”

  Was this the first time he’d said that out loud? My heart cracked a hundred times more. I reached for his hand, but he jerked it out of reach.

  “The one bright part of my life was gone, and it was my fault because I stupidly believed that something else mattered more. Because I betrayed her.”

  “Stop,” I pleaded.

  Drio flexed his fingers, wincing. “Leo betrayed me and you betrayed me.”

  It hadn’t occurred to me that he’d lump me in on the blame, but yeah. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “I don’t care.”

  I listened to his fading footsteps. All the trust and goodwill and friendship that I’d built with him was gone. He wouldn’t rat me out to the Brotherhood because that would mean ratting Ro out, but the man that had walked out of this room was no longer on my team. I’d lost Drio and my world was bleaker for it. I already missed the stupid psycho with his fierce devotion and wry take on the world.

  No one would ever be Asha for him, but him and Leo could have been something new together, calming each other’s rough edges and brightening the dark parts. But if they each spiraled fully and completely into that darkness? I pressed the heel of my hand into my breastbone, rubbing at the sting, but it didn’t ease the hollow worry.

  22

  Ro was awake when I checked on him. “My magic,” he whispered, white-knuckling the sheets. “I can’t get it to work.”

  Adrenaline spiked through me. I reached out for him, then froze. “At all?”

  He rubbed his hands briskly over his arms. “When I reach for it, I hit a dead zone. I can’t…”

  The anguish in his voice lashed me.

  “It’s still there.” It had to still be there. “I’ll be back.”

  I ran out of the room, sprinting into my bedroom to call Dr. Gelman. The screen on my burner phone had cracked in my outburst earlier, but it worked. I counted the rings, willing her to answer.

  “Nava, now’s not a good time.”

  “Please. I tried to heal Rohan and now his magic doesn’t work.” I slid down the wall, my hand pressed to my mouth, swallowing the metallic bile in the back of my throat.

  “Coming,” she said and hung up.

  I stood at the gate, gripping the iron bars, waiting for her to arrive. I hit the scanner the second I saw the car. Dr. Gelman’s sister, Rivka, was in the driver’s seat. She popped the locks on the door and I scrambled in the backseat. “Thank you.”

  “No more breaking into my house.” The resemblance between her and Dr. Gelman, her younger sister, was strengthened by the aging that Gelman’s cancer had added to her features.

  “Never again, I swear. I’m sorry.”

  Rivka nodded and sped through the grounds.

  I helped Dr. Gelman out of the car and up the front stairs, forcing myself to accommodate her slow pace.

  “Isaac.” Rivka stopped inside the foyer.

  My eyes darted between them. They’d dated years ago and he’d broken her heart. Should I have cleared this visit with him?

  “Rivka. Esther.” He gave a half-bow, clearly puzzled.

  “They need to help Ro,” I pleaded.

  He patted my shoulder. “It’s all right, Navela. Take them to him.”

  Ro was sitting in bed, his eyes closed. He kept tensing his muscles. No blades popped out.

  “Ro?” I said.

  “Not now.”

  “Ah. The illustrious Rohan. We didn’t get a chance to meet in Prague.”

  Rohan opened his eyes at the sound of Dr. Gelman’s voice. “Sorry?” He was giving me a what-the-fuck look.

  I helped Dr. Gelman into a chair. “This is Dr. Gelman and her sister, Rivka.”

  “Also Dr. Gelman,” Rivka said, moving to the side of Ro’s bed. “A real doctor, unlike this one.”

  My Gelman snorted.

  “I understand you’re having some trouble with your magic?” Rivka reached for his hand. “May I?” He placed his hand in hers. She clasped it, asking him what had happened. After he’d finished up, she nodded and placed his hand on the blanket. “Your magic is still there.”

  “What’s the bad news?” he asked.

  “It’s tangled up with the magic of the shedim and the other Rasha to such an extent that I can’t unravel it.”

  “Is that all it is?” I backpedalled, seeing the flash of hurt on Ro’s face like somehow that wasn’t bad enough. “I mean, who can? Unravel it?”

  “The demon and the Rasha are the sole causes,” Rivka assured me. Her sympathetic smile faded. “But I don’t know of any witch who has the power to break this. I’m sorry.”

  Rohan swung his feet out of bed. “Forget it. Thanks for trying.” He strode to the door.

  “Ro.”

  He didn’t glance back.

  The two women murmured platitudes about giving him time before they left. Their concern was wasted on me. I thanked them and walked them to their car, but I couldn’t get rid of them fast enough.

  I’d scoured every inch of the house and most of the grounds before I found him.

  Rohan had hidden away in a secluded back corner of the garden, sitting on the ground, his back against a tree. His knees were drawn up to his chest, his arms covering his head, the only sound his harsh, broken exhales.

  Giving up his music had cost him, but he’d been able to get back to it. Losing his magic? It would destroy him. He had to have his powers. That’s all there was.

  And I could get it back for him even if it was the worst thing I ever did.

  “Who says the offer is still on the table?” Lilith had accepted my container of red velvet cupcakes from the fin
est cupcake store in town as her due. She licked the last of the frosting off her fingers. “Especially with your new condition on the agreement.”

  A light breeze provided relief to the evening heat, teasing the strands of her hair and the hem of her coral sundress. White-capped waves danced under a brilliant blue sky, and the beach-goers here at English Bay were in a festive mood.

  Where was the rain and gloom when you needed it? If I was going to step into the role of cold-hearted betrayer, I didn’t need the fucking sun mocking me. I wanted my treachery on an appropriate stage, my villainy for all to see, because the thought that I could do this and get away with it, even coming out like some kind of hero, was killing me.

  I am David, thinking outside-the-box. Fighting on my own turf and playing to win.

  I sipped my iced latte, shifting to take up more room on the bench so the couple who approached us would find somewhere else to sit. “The memory you experienced before was nothing compared to the passion between Rohan and me now.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.” Lilith took my hand and I focused on the night in the hotel. When her hold slackened, her eyes were half-glazed with lust. Her skin was luminous, her breasts higher and tighter. She’d fed off the memory.

  “Told you.” Taking this precious memory and offering it up like so much smut when what had mattered was the trust and the tenderness and the raw intimacy made me wish I could scrub my skin bloody. I dug my nails into my palms, riding the pain. She couldn’t know how every second propelling me forward into this deal was flaying my soul.

  “What about your pesky morals?” she said.

  “They don’t matter in the scheme of things. You were right.”

  She nodded. “I know better than anyone what it takes for a powerful woman to blaze her own path. Decide what’s important; let the rest go. Once you understand that, you can take anything you want if you want it badly enough. You will have near infinite power.”

  I didn’t want power over Rohan, I just wanted to save him. “What Ro doesn’t know won’t hurt him. He won’t know, correct?”

  “Neither of you will be aware of me. To be clear, you’re offering one night with Rohan in exchange for the name of whoever is behind the purple magic and the return of his Rasha magic. That’s the agreement.”

  “The purple magic on all three items and no using black magic to fix him. The deal is off then.” I pulled the gogota finger, the yaksas horn, and the shedim’s ear out of my purse, arranging them on the wooden bench between us.

  Lilith picked up the items, curling her fingers lightly over them, staring out at the freighters far out on the water. She handed me back the gogota finger and horn. “The witch who did this is dead. She is of no importance.”

  Tessa. This was the definitive connection between Prague and Askuchar, between the Brotherhood and a witch able to bind demons to do her bidding, but there was no surge of sweet triumph. “How about the ear?”

  She turned it over and over in her hand, caressing its ridges. Super creepy. “I know this magic. No, something close.” She sniffed the leathery ear. “Millicent,” she sighed.

  Millicent? It took me a moment to remember where I’d heard that name. “The witch who practiced black magic? She’s dead.” I looked at my companion. “Isn’t she?”

  “She is,” she said sorrowfully. “This isn’t her magic. But similar.”

  “Sister? Daughter?” I held out my hand for the ear, dropping it in my purse with the other items.

  “Daughter. Yes. The one she gave up.”

  Leo might be able to help me search adoption records, except she was hiding. I hoped. “Got a last name for Millicent? Her daughter’s name? Anything useful?”

  She shrugged, like she’d lost interest. “She was white; the father was black. Her family didn’t allow her to keep the child.”

  My latte hit the ground. “How old would this kid be now?”

  “Thirties?”

  Sienna was in her thirties. Brotherhood-hating Sienna who had been furious to learn about Ferdinand and was very upset the last time I’d seen her. Around the time of Tessa’s death. It had to be.

  “We need to formalize our deal.” Lilith took my hand, scoring her thumb across it. My palm split, drops of blood welling up.

  “Wait.” You’re doing this for his magic. He’ll never know and it’s still me that he’ll be with. It’ll merely be like someone watching us. “You swear it’s only one time.”

  “Yes. Tonight.”

  “He’ll just have gotten his magic back. He may not be in the mood.”

  “Then convince him.” She cut her own hand open and pressed our skin together. I repeated the words of my vow to uphold the oath. Our gashes sizzled, scabbing over like a pink, twisted burn. “It’ll fade once the deal is completed.”

  There’d be no mark save for the blemish on my psyche. “Can you get through the wards?” I said.

  “I don’t need to. I’ll be in you, and you can cross them no problem.”

  No problem. What a joke. Ro lived by the code that you didn’t betray your team, and in making the deal with Lilith I’d done just that. It didn’t matter that the ends justified the means, because if I didn’t save him this way, I’d lose him. It didn’t matter that he’d never know what I’d done.

  I’d know, and I hated myself already.

  Lilith sashayed to my car, throwing coy smiles at all the turned heads.

  I clutched my purse strap so I wouldn’t clock her.

  She slid into the front seat and, pulling down my visor, applied some lipstick she had stashed in her bra.

  “You said he wasn’t going to see you.” I wrenched the engine on, grinding it. It went well with the still-dented hood.

  “I want to look my best for me. Now, let’s see what we’re working with.” She pumped my arm up and down.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Do you have to know every little detail?”

  “Uh, yeah.” I tried to swat her hand away but she swatted me right back.

  “You have a bit of healing magic, but it’s weak. No one trained you?”

  “No one knew I was a witch. How did you?”

  “Who’d ever heard of a female Rasha?” She kept pumping my arm.

  I squirmed, checking that no one was staring in through the windows at us. “This is ridiculous.”

  “I’m priming the magic up for one good shot. You want your boyfriend fixed, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but there’s no way you’re really doing anything.”

  “Ye of little faith.” She pumped my arm one last time.

  “Ye of big bullshit. This doesn’t work, our deal is off.”

  “Be careful when you release it. There’s a bit of a kicker on this.”

  “Fucking hell.” What a joke.

  She brushed off her hands. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Ready?”

  I snapped my seatbelt in. “As I’ll ever be.”

  One second she was there, the next she wasn’t. A feather-light touch skimmed my shoulder blades, my skin stretching like the not-unpleasant sensation of flexing my fingers with tight, dry skin and that, apparently, was that.

  I searched my eyes in the rearview mirror but there was no sign of her. Nothing about me looked different, nothing felt different, yet driving home, my fingers twitched, itching to claw off my own skin, find her, and rip her out.

  I called Dr. Gelman over Bluetooth. “Sienna’s taken over from Tessa.”

  “You’re doing wonders for my recovery. Would you like to come over and throw some nuclear waste on me?”

  “Sienna is your friend. Did you know she was Millicent’s daughter?”

  “Bat zona!” A long drawn out pause, followed by a flick, and a deep inhale.

  “Are you smoking?! Put that out!”

  “One drag. Rivka,” she called. There followed a fast and furious conversation in Hebrew and I was put on hold.

  I scrolled through the dial: Paula Abdul’s “Cold-Hearted
Snake,” Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love A Bad Name,” and “Burn” from Hamilton. I punched off the radio.

  “Sienna’s cell is out of service,” Gelman said. “My ward nurse said that she up and quit suddenly after seven years on the job.”

  “Could Sienna take over from Tessa? Binding demons?”

  “She would have had to be training in secret for years, but that’s how it works, isn’t it?” Her lighter clicked on and off. “Working for the Brotherhood, however? Tessa may have been charmed into it by Ferdinand, but Sienna? No. Whatever she’s up to, she’s not helping them.”

  “Did she kill Tessa for it?”

  “No. That was the magic.” She said it with absolute certainty.

  I pulled up the chapter house gate, expecting alarms to blare, and my flesh to boil when I passed the ward line onto the property. I crossed my fingers, hoping for the out, and gunned forward. There was no bouncing off the invisible shields, just a smooth slide onto the grounds.

  “How’s Rohan?” Dr. Gelman asked.

  “He’ll be fine.” Help me. I coughed.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Fabulous. Gotta go.” There’d be no help for what I’d done, but I could fix what was broken.

  Unless Ro and Drio, sparring in the Vault, killed each other first.

  They’d left the door open. We had an air conditioning system that did a pretty good job keeping the sweat stink at bay, but they’d propped open the door because it was steamy in there. I stayed in the shadows of the hallway.

  Ro, wearing gi bottoms and a T-shirt, swung a thin curved blade mounted at the end of a long iron pole at Drio’s head. His pecs tensed and flexed with the movement.

  The pole whistled over Drio, who’d flattened himself backward before springing back to his feet, a similar weapon at the ready. Drio’s gi bottoms encased his rock-hard thighs and his bare chest gleamed with sweat. Dude was so ripped, his six-pack had a six-pack. In a flash, he was behind Ro, his blade arcing toward Rohan with a hard whoosh.

  I eeped at the ensuing decapitation, but Rohan had it under control. He sidestepped the weapon, not even flinching as it brushed by the end of his nose. He swept his pole under Drio’s and would have torn a chunk out of Drio’s side had Drio not blocked it with a ringing clang.