The Unlikeable Demon Hunter
Deborah Wilde
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
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Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright © 2017 by Deborah Wilde.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Cover design by Damonza
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Wilde, Deborah, 1970-, author
The unlikeable demon hunter / Deborah Wilde.
(Nava Katz ; 1)
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-0-9920709-8-4 (softcover).--ISBN 978-0-9920709-9-1 (EPUB).--ISBN 978-1-988681-00-9 (Kindle)
I. Title.
PS8607.A74M8 2013 jC813’.6 C2013-904599-6
C2016-907806-X
ISBN: 978-0-9920709-9-1
1
Mornings after sucked.
Walks of shame were a necessary evil, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed shimmying back into the same trollop togs twice. I picked glitter out of my hair, then straightened my sequined top. I was officially decommissioning it. Multiple washings never quite managed to remove the lingering aura of bad decisions I made while wearing party clothes. My philosophy? Cross my fingers and hope for the most bang for the bucks spent later on new outfits.
The surly cabbie evil-eyed me to hurry up.
I complied, rooting around in my clutch for some crumpled bills before handing them over and stumbling out of the taxi onto the sidewalk.
Fresh air was a godsend after the stale bitter coffee smell I’d been trapped with during the ride. I pressed a finger to my temple, a persistent dull throb stabbing me behind my eyeballs. My residual feel good haze clashed big-time with the glaring sun screaming at me to wake up, and the buzz of a neighbor’s lawnmower cutting through the Sunday morning quiet didn’t help matters. Best get inside.
Smoothing out my mini skirt, I readied myself for my tame-my-happy-slut-self-to-boring-PG-rating body check when a wave of dizziness crashed through me. Whoa. I brought my gaze back to horizon level, swallowing hard. That sea-sickness technique was doing dick-all so I rummaged in my bag for my ginger chews.
No puking in the bushes, I chided myself, letting the spicy smooth and sweet candy fight my nausea. My mother would toss my bubble ass out if I defiled her precious rhodos.
Again.
The rise and fall of my chest as I took a few deep breaths spotlit a slight problem. My spangly blouse was missing two buttons. And I was missing a bra. Hook-up Dude had been worth the loss of a pair of socks, maybe a bargain bin thong. But the latest in purple push-up technology? No. I allowed myself a second to mourn. It had been a good and loyal bra.
The sex, on the other hand? Total crap. The girls, who were normally perky C cups, seemed a bit subdued. I couldn’t blame them. What’s-his-name had started out with all the promise of a wild stallion gallop, but he’d ended up more of a gentle trot. I didn’t know if the fault lay with the jockey or the ride, but it had been a long time since I’d seen a finish line.
Since I couldn’t keep examining my tits on the front walk with Mrs. Jepson side-eyeing me from behind her living room curtains, I thrust my chin up and clacked a staccato rhythm toward my front door on those mini torture chambers that had seemed such a good idea yesterday.
Every step made our precisely manicured lawn undulate. I clamped my lips shut, willing the ginger chews to kick in while fumbling my key into the lock. Dad had screwed up the measurements on our striking cedar and stained glass front door and, being a touch too big for the frame, it needed to be shouldered open.
I crashed into the door like a linebacker. Once I’d extricated myself and my keys from the lock, I brushed myself off, and stepped inside. Our house itself was comfortably upper middle class but not huge, since my parents preferred to spend money on trips and books instead of the overpriced real estate found in here in Vancouver. A quick glance to my left showed that the TV room was empty. I crossed my fingers that Mom and Dad were out at their squash game, my main reason for picking this specific time to sneak back in.
Really, a twenty-year-old shouldn’t have had to sneak. But then again, a twenty-year-old probably should have kept her last menial job for longer than two weeks, so I wasn’t in a position to argue rights.
I kicked off my shoes, sighing in delight at the feel of cool tile under my bare feet as I padded through the house to our homey kitchen. No one was in there either. Someone, probably Mom, had tacked the envelope with my final–and only–pay stub from the call center that I’d left lying around onto our small “miscellaneous” cork board. The gleaming quartz counters were now free of their usual clutter of papers, books, and latest gourmet food find. That meant company. Come to think of it, I did hear someone in the living room.
A study in tasteful shades of white, the large formal room was off-limits unless we had special guests. Mom had set that rule when my twin brother Ari and I were little tornados running around the place and while there was no longer a baby gate barring our way, conditioning and several memorable scoldings kept us out.
Hmmm. Could Ari be entertaining an actual human boy? Le gasp.
I beelined for the back of the house, past the row of identically framed family photos hanging in a neat grid, my head cocked. Listening for more voices, but all was quiet. Maybe I’d been wrong? I hoped not. Both finding my brother with a crush–blackmail dirt–and helping myself to the liquor cabinet were positive prospects. What better way to lose that hangover headache than get drunk again? Oh, the joys of being Canadian with socialized health care and legal drinking age of nineteen. After a year (officially) honing that skill, I imbibed at an Olympic level.
The red wine on the modular coffee table gleamed in a shaft of sunlight like its position had been ordained by the gods. I snatched up the crystal decanter, sloshing the liquid into the glass conveniently placed next to it. Once in a while, a girl could actually catch a break.
I fanned myself with one hand. The myriad of lit candles seemed a bit much for Ari’s romantic encounter, but wine drinking trumped curiosity so I chugged the booze back. My entire body cheered as the cloyingly-sweet alcohol hit my system, though I hoped it wasn’t Manischewitz because hangovers on that were a bitch. I’d slugged back hal
f the contents when I saw my mom on the far side of the room clutch her throat, eyes wide with horror. Not her usual, “you need an intervention” horror. No, her expression indicated I’d reached a whole new level of fuck-up.
“Nava Liron Katz,” she gasped in full name outrage.
My cheeks still bulging with wine, I properly scoped out the room. Mom? Check. Dad? Check. Ari? Check? Rabbi Abrams, here to perform the ceremony to induct my brother as the latest member in the Brotherhood of David, the chosen demon hunters?
Check.
I spit the wine back into what I now realized was a silver chalice and handed it to the elderly bearded rabbi. “Carry on,” I told him. Then I threw up on his shoes.
Forty-five minutes later, I huddled on top of the closed toilet seat in my ensuite bathroom sucking the cheesy coating off Doritos while replaying my actions in grisly Technicolor. Even with all the lights off, the room was as bright and insistent as Martha Stewart’s smile. A dusty Costco-sized sanitary pad box lay open on the counter–the hiding place for my secret stash of arterial clogging happiness.
Now, though, the chips were less illicit joy and more bite-sized snacks of self-loathing.
I stuck my hand into the bag for another nacho, careful not to crinkle it and give myself away. Hard to say what had been the highlight of that little disaster: drinking the ceremonial wine, vomiting, or the wardrobe malfunction that had released my left boob into the world and caused my dad to strain his back jumping in front of me to block the view.
Go me.
Someone rapped on the door. Chip in mouth like a pacifier, I froze, listening to the raised voices from downstairs–the rabbi yelling, my mother cajoling, and my father reasoning. That left Ari, and right now I was too chickenshit to face him. How could saying sorry cover wrecking the most important moment of his life?
“I know you’re eating Doritos,” he called from outside the door. “Let me in.”
“Nope.” I swallowed down the now-mushy chip and gave a lusty groan. “I’m making a hate crime.”
“If that were true, you’d be running the water because you’re paranoid people will learn you have an anus.” He jiggled the knob. “Let me in.”
I glared at the tap, assigning blame to the inanimate object for failing to carry out its part of my brilliant plan. Dumping the bag down on the counter with a sigh, I washed orange nacho residue off my hands before I tightened the belt on the fuzzy housecoat now wrapped around me, and unlocked the door.
“I’m so, so sorry, Ari,” I said, hanging my head. My fraternal twin deserved all the success and more. Ari never treated me like I was “less than” in any way, not even once. “I know you have no reason to believe me but–”
“Shut up,” he said, brushing past me in his navy fitted suit. Very bespoke, except for the tired slump of his shoulders.
He lowered himself down on to the edge of the bathtub, knocking one of the many bottles of citrusy shampoo into the tub. With one hand braced on the mosaic shower tiles for support, he removed his kippah, tossing it onto the counter where its embroidered, gold Star of David winked among the chaos of make-up and hair pins.
“Damn, that itches.” He scratched his blond head with a relieved sigh, then jerked his chin at the Doritos bag still in my hand. “You gonna share?”
I locked the door, returned to my throne seat, and held the chips out between us.
We sat there in companionable silence, munching through the party-sized bag.
“These are so disgusting,” Ari said, stuffing about ten of them in his mouth.
I reached over and brushed orange crumbs off his suit. “Careful, bubeleh. Wouldn’t want you to get dirty. Oh, if the elders knew that their healthy-eating chosen one was up here taking years off his life.”
“Eh,” he said, spraying chips. “I’d just blame you, o defiler of innocents.”
“Useful having an evil twin, isn’t it?” My tone was light; my stomach twisted.
He wiped his mouth. “Don’t give yourself that much credit. You’re not evil. Just misguided.”
I drew myself up to my full height. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”
We finished the bag, then elbowed each other for first rights of tap water. A quick sip later and I slid onto the brown cork floor, bloated and happy. Well, as happy as I could be.
“I don’t know how you’re not puking given you were still drunk an hour ago,” Ari said.
“These chips have magic properties. Plus, I got it all out of my system on the carpet.”
He shuddered. “Don’t remind me. I think Mom is angrier about that than your spectacular entrance. She was a fairly impressive mottled red when I left her.”
“Merlot or tomato?”
“Nava Red,” my brother replied. “A special shade named in honor of you.”
“Why were you doing the ritual anyway?” I snapped. “The induction is tomorrow. The sixth.”
“Or, today, the sixth.”
Shit! I hugged my knees into my chest. “Ari–”
He stood up, one hand raised to cut me off. “No. You really want to apologize? Take a shower and get dressed so that I have one person who wants to be at this ceremony for me. Not for status or whatever the hell I am to those people down there.”
“Ace,” I gasped, “isn’t this what you want?”
He affixed the kippah back on his head, staring at his reflection in the mirror above the sink for a long moment. “I’ve never had a chance to decide whether I wanted it or not. We were five days old when they determined I was an initiate. I didn’t get a vote.”
We’d both seen the photo of our parents’ stunned faces when a somewhat younger, yet still astonishingly ancient Rabbi Abrams had visited my mother–a descendent of King David–to check Ari out. Since the Brotherhood is top secret, my parents weren’t clued in to the true nature of the rabbi’s visit until after he’d determined Ari as an initiate: a chosen demon hunter. The photo in question had been taken after a lot of explanations and convincing that yes, this was all real, and yes, their son had a hell of an important destiny.
I went into my bedroom to grab some clean clothes to put on after my shower.
Back in the day, and by day I’m talking Old Testament, this shepherd called David took out the giant Goliath for King Saul. While that landed David his place in history, there was more to him than his crazy rock-slinging skills.
I don’t know if David was an adrenaline junkie or a major do-gooder but when King Saul was later possessed by a demon, David was all “leave it to me,” and cast the hell spawn out. Guess David figured demon removal was a good public service to keep up, because once he became king around 1010 B.C.E., he gathered up his buddies to continue the work. Kick-ass Jews. Awesome.
Though it had never made sense why he called his hunters Rasha–the Hebrew word for “wicked.”
I tossed my clothes over the hook affixed to the back of the bathroom door. “Talk to me.”
My brother had spent his entire life studying and training in preparation for the day he was formally inducted into the Brotherhood. I cocked an eyebrow at Ari, annoyed when he shrugged off my question. “Don’t pretend you aren’t excited to see what magic power you’ll end up with.”
His eyes lit up for a second. “Telekinesis or light bender. Those would be cool.” He jerked a thumb at the shower and I obediently ran the tap, waiting for the water to hit blistering temperature.
“Slime generator or asphyxiation via lethal ass gas, more like.”
“Ha. Ha.” Ari gnawed on his bottom lip.
“You want out?” I cracked my knuckles. “You could totally take all three of them downstairs. I’ll help.”
He shrugged, the motion bunching the dark fabric around his muscles. “I don’t know what else I’d do. What else I’m good for.”
I poked his bicep. “Kill the pity party, Mr. Perfect GPA. I’m sure between your chem major and biology minor some giant pharmaceutical company somewhere will have a small fortune and loads o
f interesting problems for you.” I wasn’t jealous. He and I didn’t roll that way. He may have been chosen and wicked smart but the only thing that bugged me about him was that he had prettier lashes than me. It was always the boys with those camel eyes. So unfair.
I tested the water temperature, shaking droplets off my hand until, satisfied with its magma levels of hot, I pulled the knob up to send the water cascading full blast through the shower head.
Ari mussed my hair. “You’re gonna do something great some day too,” he said. I smacked his hand off of my head. “You just need to find your thing.” He rushed that second sentence as if hoping I wouldn’t remember that I’d found my thing a long time ago and the chances of finding something else I loved as much were pretty slim.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” I pushed him toward the door. “Go keep them from cutting me out of the will. I’ll be there in ten. The picture of respectability.”
Ari snorted. “Don’t strain yourself. I’ll settle for clean.” He sniffed me, fanning in front of his face with a grimace. “Screwing hobos again?”
“College boys. Same, same.” I reached for the belt of my housecoat.
He unlocked the door, half-twisting back to me. “Would you care? If I didn’t do it?”
I paused, belt still tied. “God, no. The few Rasha I ever met were dick-swinging balls of testosterone. Though I’d hoped for your sake some of them were also dick-sucking. Like that smexy Brazilian they brought in last year to train you in Capoeira.”
He failed to appreciate my eyebrow waggle. “Why do I bother?”
King David had realized pretty early on that even if he rid Israel of demons, there was a reason they were part of every culture’s mythology. Demons were an international problem. Since Jerusalem was close to this trade route called the King’s Highway, David sent his band far and wide to find all the best specimens of manhood from various races and religions including Muslims, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Celts, and Thracians to fight the good fight. The Brotherhood was formed.
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz Book 1) Page 1