The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz Book 1)

by Deborah Wilde

  I learned something very interesting in the next little while. Rohan was exceedingly competitive. There was no banter, no joking around. You’d have thought humanity’s survival depended on the outcome of the game, he was so laser-focused.

  In the end, though, I sank the eight-ball first. I picked up both shots and made him take one. “L’chaim.” I clinked my glass to his and shot the drink back, shivering at the sharp burn of booze hitting my throat, warming a path down to my stomach.

  “Rack ’em.”

  Rohan placed his empty glass next to mine. “What happened to ‘loser drinks?’” he asked, as we moved around the pool table removing balls from the pockets.

  “I didn’t say winner couldn’t drink.” I rolled balls over to him, hips shaking to the up tempo dance music.

  A few people drifted over to watch the next game. I ended up with a small group of interchangeable hipster fanboys–thankfully beardless–alternating between cheering me on with poorly disguised innuendo and offering tips. Neither of which impressed me.

  Rohan’s posse, on the other hand, consisted of a trio of chicks named after designers, sporting streaked blonde hair and prodigious breasts. Armani, Chanel, and Prada were either incestuous triplets or friends with benefits who didn’t like each other. I wasn’t sure how to deconstruct their alternate sniping and groping.

  About halfway through the game, the girls started buying Rohan drinks. Sure, them, he’d take booze from. I hoped he’d become a sloppy drunk. No such luck. If anything, his playing got better.

  “You guys learn to fight wasted, don’t you?” I muttered after he slammed back yet another tequila then pocketed the eight-ball with an impressive stroke that won him game two.

  He gave me a wide smile and handed me my loser shot.

  I fired it back. Good thing I could hold my liquor. I couldn’t afford a loss in motor skills.

  “Let make this interesting,” Rohan said. “If I win…”

  Cuntessa de Spluge woke up, having a vested interest in hearing the rest of that sentence.

  “You go home,” he finished.

  Back to seniors’ hours. “All right,” I said, “but if I win, we stick around for dancing.”

  The DJ was winding the crowd higher with a little Usher. How fun would it be to be out there with Rohan? I made a face. “Unless you can’t dance.” I beckoned him closer. “If you have no rhythm, tell me now.”

  “My rhythm is bang on,” he drawled in my ear.

  Cuntessa pulsed.

  The two posses took our escalation into betting territory as the green light to place bets with each other. Given the shrieking giggles of the girls, it wasn’t hard to guess what was at stake. The trouble was that they now ganged up on poor Rohan and me, deciding that a shot of their choosing (and buying) had to be drunk for each ball missed.

  Rohan readily agreed to this. I did too. I could hold my booze and was determined to crush him.

  It was on.

  I lost track of everything around me. My world narrowed down to the felt, the cue ball, and the occasional fresh cool glass pressed into my hand. Which started happening more and more often as that one drink too many tilted my pool playing abilities into potential epic failure territory. My stomach protested the boozy onslaught.

  “Spit or swallow?” Rohan murmured to me, near the end of the final game. We were neck and neck for balls sunk.

  I sputtered the water I’d been gulping down. “Beg pardon?”

  He nodded at the triplets. “Spit or swallow? What are your boys in for tonight?”

  I didn’t even need to glance at the girls to answer that one. “Neither. Those girls are not putting their mouths on it.”

  Rohan gaped at me like door number three wasn’t even a reality in his world.

  I laughed and patted his shoulder. “Such a sheltered life you’ve led, Snowflake.”

  Rohan shot the girls another perplexed glance. They flashed their cleavage while staying primly out of groping reach, resulting in more than one of the hipsters pulling a “trying to adjust myself” shifting side-to-side move in response.

  “How can they ask a guy to go down on them if they won’t do the same?” he asked.

  Cuntessa throbbed at his implied readiness to boldly go where many men would not.

  “They don’t,” I said. “No guy is putting his mouth on it either.”

  “They’re missing out on a whole realm of excellent,” Rohan said.

  “God, yes,” I said, louder and tipsier than I intended.

  We grinned at each other in perfect harmony but the conversation had me regretting my choice of bet. Wanting to explore that particular realm of excellent with him. Still. I’d used dancing as foreplay on more than one occasion.

  Despite all the drinking, victory was almost mine but I got cocky, using a bit too much force on my final shot. The eight-ball hit the back of the pocket and bounced back.

  Cuntessa gave a disgusted grunt.

  “It’s almost no fun winning this way,” Rohan said, not hesitating to sink the ball. He pumped his fist in victory but there was no answering gush of approval from his posse. Come to think of it, no grumbling from mine, either.

  We were yesterday’s news. The group had already paired off into dry hump partners. One of the pairs had gotten especially frisky. The guy’s shirt was pushed halfway up while his partner’s tipsy maulings had caused his jeans to slip dangerously low on his ass.

  I grabbed my clutch then nudged Rohan, motioning toward the two with a jerk of my chin, notably dude’s pale butt. “He could be arrested for possession of that much crack.”

  Rohan pressed his head close to mine. “‘Never back down.’” He read the tattoo written in graphic print at the base of the guy’s spine. “Dude,” he said with a mournful shake of his head. Booze exaggerated his word into pure Southern Cali drawl.

  “Factoring in the placement, those words cover so many possibilities,” I said. “Everything from empowerment to grim determination in the face of prison showers. Wonder which it is?”

  Rohan smothered a laugh against my hair. It shimmied down to my toes, which curled under to contain the sparkly lightness. He took my slight sway of motion for our cue to leave. “Since I trounced you,” he said, handing his stick over to a woman waiting for the table, “it’s time for all good little girls to go to bed. You, too.”

  “To think that wit was wasted in the music industry.”

  Rohan scooped up his jacket with one hand, placing his other on the small of my back to lead me away from the table.

  I skirted the edge of the dance floor with its strobing lights, the alcohol in my system warming me as much as weaving through the press of bodies. Colors were more saturated. Time and my body moved more languidly. The music slithered up from the floor, pulsing into my skin. I stepped toward the other dancers, wanting to join them. To lose myself.

  Rohan kept me on course, steering me to the exit with a steady hand.

  I had to concentrate what he was babbling on about to me because words took a bit longer to penetrate. Oooh. Penetrate.

  The cool night was a welcome relief. I swayed to the throb of the still-audible bass, watching Rohan grow more and more frustrated trying to flag down a cab.

  “Give it up. It’s practically impossible on a weekend,” I said. “We’ll have a better chance a few blocks away.”

  “So many things wrong with this city,” he muttered.

  “Follow me,” I trilled, pushing through the crowd.

  The night had turned unseasonably muggy, the air heavy with that metallic smell promising rain. A born and bred Vancouverite, rain didn’t phase me.

  Dodging through the late night crowd, we’d just hit the mouth of an alleyway when we heard a hissed, “Wanna blow your mind?” I would have sailed past but Rohan clasped my wrist to stop me. The dealer stepped into view. Your run-of-the-mill slime bucket, he wore a skull and hearts T-shirt under a jean jacket. A crescent-shaped birthmark edged his left cheek.

&nb
sp; The dealer jerked his chin at Rohan. “Interested, man?”

  Rohan hooked an arm around my neck. “My girlfriend might be. She likes to live on the edge.” Girlfriend? Under his breath he said, “Like taking off on her own when ordered otherwise.” He pushed me forward. “Show her what you’ve got.”

  Slime Bucket’s eyes glittered. “Devil’s candy. A rush like nothing else.”

  Evil and unsubtle, a winning combo. I barely refrained from rolling my eyes. “Let’s talk.” I walked forward.

  Thinking he had a customer, the dealer accompanied me into the shadowy alley reeking of urine, Rohan trailing us. The demon led us in through an open door to a small back room with a couple of couches. A naked bulb in a hideous ceramic table lamp cast a dim light, but it was enough to see the young man sprawled out on a couch, pressed close to a willowy, blue-haired female bearing an identical crescent birthmark as the dealer.

  What really squicked me out was that the man was sucking on the female’s thumb, his face lost in orgiastic delight, even as clumps of his hair fell to the stained concrete. With every moan the guy let out, Blue Hair’s skin seemed to plump with an extra layer of collagen, her hair shine and thicken, and the crow’s feet by her eyes and lines by her lips vanish.

  My head swam from whatever bliss drug she was secreting. I clutched the top of a chair to keep from sinking onto that sofa with them and joining in. Rohan, on the other hand, slouched against the doorframe with his hands jammed in his pockets. Not an ounce of tension in him.

  The dealer noted the affect the place was having on me. “Go on,” he murmured into my ear as he pried one of my hands off of the chair, “live a little.”

  “Just say no.” I gripped the chair harder and blasted the demon back against the wall with mega-current shot from my eyes.

  Oh my God, I had a literal death glare! It was official: I was a badass.

  Blue Hair flicked the fingers of her free hand at me, prismic drops of her evil sweat flying through the air to land on me like a gentle spring rain. Well, a gentle spring rain that exploded light into trippy colors and amped oxygen into a liquid happiness rush. My knees buckled and I swayed toward her with a moan.

  Rohan slammed the dealer up against the wall, stabbing him through the right palm with a finger blade. With a pop, the dealer dissolved into an oily puddle.

  Blue Hair rose up, the man clutching at her leg, his mouth working uselessly, sucking nothing. Fury blazed in her eyes as she snatched her victim up in her arms and blurred past us into the night.

  Rohan pulled me into the alley after her but she was gone. I sucked in a head-clearing breath.

  “Remember that helplessness the next time you plan on taking off alone,” Rohan said.

  “I accessed my power.”

  “Yeah, but you still needed back up.”

  “Still need babysitting. Got it.”

  “Hey.” He ran his hand along my back, the tension in it lessoning at his touch. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  I nodded. “So? Why aren’t we hauling ass after them?”

  Rohan leaned back against the alley wall. “Did you see how far gone he was? Those scum pimp a hallucinatory secretion that induces bliss while they drain the victim’s life away. That guy has maybe fifteen minutes left in him tops. And even if we did rush in, save him?” He glowered at the empty room. “Addicts always go back.”

  I hoped dude’s death was painless. Then I blasted a dumpster into a brick wall hard enough to crack it.

  Rohan placed a hand on my shoulder. “We don’t always win.”

  Not wanting to go home on that note, I strode into a small urban park, headed for a narrow stream flowing along a concrete channel. It cascaded into a circular pool inset in the ground before gurgling up from a fountain in its center.

  Four brick archways flanked the fountain–one at each corner. I picked one at random, sinking onto the bench underneath the overflowing foliage, which provided a thick leafy canopy. I stretched out my legs, looking up at the stars and focusing on their beauty so I wouldn’t lose myself to the ugliness.

  Traffic in the background provided a soothing white noise.

  I hoped that man had had a full life, short as it was.

  “Don’t get comfortable,” Rohan said.

  “Too late.” I dug around in my clutch. “Aha.” I pulled out my tiny black pot pipe and lit up, holding the smoke in past the initial burn in my lungs.

  Rohan plucked the pipe from my fingers and took a deep drag. I was so shocked that I sputtered out all my smoke. I waved a hand in front of my face as he patted me on the back with one hand.

  “Thought you were on duty,” I said, reclaiming the pipe and dragging on it again.

  Rohan exhaled in a steady breath. “I’ve fought more wrecked than this.”

  I offered him the pipe again but he shook his head. I placed it and the lighter on the bench beside me. “How rock star did you get at the height of things?”

  He folded his hands on his stomach, looking up at the few stars visible through the light pollution. “Pretty much every cliché you’d imagine.”

  That conjured up images of writhing, barely clad bodies that I was either too stoned or not stoned enough to handle. “Why’d you quit?”

  He was quiet for a long time. I wasn’t sure if I’d pushed one too many times for an answer, or if he was zoned out. “Fame isn’t as cool from the inside.”

  I flicked my eyes sideways at him, feeling every fraction of an inch that my eyeballs moved. So I did it again because shifting them in my head from side to side was a weirdly wonderful sensation.

  It got me thinking about pinball, which morphed into the image of poor Rohan being batted around by giant flippers of fame. “It’s like you were a pinball.” I flicked my left hand like a pinball flipper. “Bam. Paparazzi.” I flicked my right. “Bam. Managers.”

  “Bing! Full tilt. Fans,” Rohan chimed in.

  “Exactly.” I wiggled my toes. What other profound insights might moving various body parts bring?

  Rohan reached up to pluck a low hanging leaf, rubbing it between his fingers. “The need to keep racking up points, to stay in the game becomes addictive. But the machine isn’t sentimental. If you fall down the hole out of play, it’s got another ball ready to take your place. It did a number on me and I fucked up.” His eyes grew distant and haunted as he added softly, “Big time.”

  Before I could ask what he meant, he reached inside his inner jacket pocket and removed a small, disc-like container. Twisting the clear plastic cover, he shook out a few candy-colored rice grains and popped them in his mouth. “Coated fennel seeds. Want some?”

  A burst of licorice hit my tongue when I crunched into them. I held out my hand for a few more.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  Above me, a massive dark raincloud menaced. That wet electric smell had gotten sharper. It was still muggy though, and I was stoned and comfortable under the canopy of leaves so I didn’t bother moving.

  I glanced at Rohan who still seemed lost in painful memories. I decided not to probe. “You sound remarkably well-adjusted now.” I brushed the wreckage of the leaf he’d shredded off of his thigh. “Or not.”

  Rohan gave a wry laugh. “This is definitely the well-adjusted version. You should have seen me even a year ago.”

  “Fucking everything that moved?” I asked, cursing myself for putting images into my very visual brain.

  “More like fighting.”

  “Hence your impressive kill record.”

  “What about you?” he asked.

  I laughed, shaking my head.

  “What?”

  I repositioned myself, sitting sideways on the bench, my legs tucked up alongside me. “You get this is surreal, right? Sitting here getting stoned with Rohan Mitra while he asks about me?”

  He preened. “Your teen fantasy made real. You’re overwhelmed.”

  I shoved his shoulder. He didn’t budge, but when he nudged me back, I jostled sidew
ays. Such strength. Bet he could pin me down.

  “There’s not much to tell.” I curled my fingers under the bench to grip it.

  Rohan extended the blades on his right hand, bringing them up to eye-level with a waggle. “Ve hav vays of making you talk,” he said in a horrible German accent. The blades disappeared. “I know you didn’t spring fully formed. You’d have been nicer.” He jabbed my side. “Tell me. Ari was the initiate, you were the what?”

  I rubbed my arms.

  Rohan shrugged off his jacket and draped it over my shoulder, shaking his head at me when I tried to protest.

  Feebly.

  What can I say? The thing was soft as butter and smelled like him.

  “I was going to dance,” I said.

  “Like around a pole?” I shot him the finger at the giggle that escaped him.

  “Like Heather Cornell, Chloe Arnold, Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, Lady Di Walker, you asshole. None of whom are Shirley Temple and all of whom are amazing tap dancers.”

  He held up his hands. “Sorry. So that was your dream?”

  I brushed my cheek against the collar, pretending to be scratching my jaw with my shoulder, snuggling into his residual warmth, and letting myself be enveloped in a Rohan cocoon. “Yeah. When I was about three I saw this old Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire tap number. After that I insisted my dad fix my shoes to ‘make those noises,’ so he taped pennies to my slippers.” I smiled at the memory. “I refused to take them off. They enrolled me in my first class that fall.”

  “What was the highlight?” I checked to see if he was humoring me but he seemed genuinely interested.

  “The summer before grade eleven, I got accepted into a special program where I studied with master tappers and then performed at Lincoln Center. That was pretty fucking mind-blowing. Not sold out concert stadiums though,” I said, with a wry grin.

  “I never played Lincoln Center. I’m impressed. So, what happened?”

  I shrugged, not able to get into it right now. Damn stoner confessions never went anywhere good.

  Rohan didn’t press me. “Do you miss dancing?”

  “Like breathing,” I said in a thick voice.

  He slung an arm around my shoulder and curled me into him. Nooked into his arm like that, I felt protected. Snug.