“He incites jealousy, even though on the surface it seems like he’s inviting people along for the ride. In fact, if you deconstruct it, most of his brand is devoted to making people feel bad about themselves.”
“By reminding them they’re not him.” I nodded. “He has that other reality show too, all about his limitless wealth and partying and he’s always living large in his movies. The ultimate good-time dude and people love it. Love him.”
“That’s the problem.” Rohan braced one foot on the coffee table. “His public persona is funny and charming. He’s smart. Comes off as the guy most likely to buy a round, fly everyone to Vegas for a night out. No scandals, no rumors of deviant behavior. He’s a huge star with a huge social media presence–a huge reach–and that makes him very dangerous.” He stretched an arm out along the top of the sofa. “His brand has an adverse affect on people that’s way out of line with other celebs. More than people jealous or bummed out that they don’t get to live his lifestyle.”
“Like what? People quitting this cruel world because they don’t get to be him?” Had I known being Rasha meant getting all up in stars’ dirty business, I’d have signed up years ago.
“Yeah. After Live like a King aired, Drio and I started tracking down everyone affiliated with the show. A lot of contestants and crew had died.” He danced the pen over his knuckles as he spoke. “They all seemed like accidents: motorcycle crash, OD, that kind of thing, but given the mental state of the people, we believe they were suicides.” He white-knuckled the pen. “Then there was the disaster at Kingdom Come.”
Talk about a nightmare. Samson had invited a bunch of his rock star and hip hop friends to a concert in the desert. A couple hundred thousand people packed in all day with insufficient water and for the grand finale, when King himself took the stage for his singing debut, some scaffolding collapsed. Between that carnage and sunstroked dehydration, hundreds were left dead and wounded. And still people fell all over themselves to defend him and his shitty concert.
“Was the collapse deliberate?” I tugged the pen out of his hand because he was about to pulverize the poor thing. Had Rohan known any of the performers that had died?
He looked down in surprise, as if he’d forgotten he’d had the writing utensil in the first place. “We have questions about the mindset of the rigger in charge. He’d been tight with Samson. If King is feeding off the pain and misery he causes, he’s gaining incredible power, but to what end?”
I made a pffft noise. “World domination. You’re welcome.”
He failed to look impressed. “No shit. But how? What’s his final move and is there a specific trigger for it? Another disaster like Kingdom Come but on a bigger scale? Something else entirely? What’s the timeline?” Rohan blew out his cheeks in frustration. “That’s what we have yet to determine. It would help if we could figure out what type of demon he is. We need to crack someone in his inner circle, get in close to monitor him, but we’ve had no luck gaining entry.”
“So what’s causing the dissenting plans of attack?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Rohan said.
Nice blow off but I wasn’t that easily dissuaded. “You ended up here in Vancouver why?” I asked.
“King is shooting a movie and–”
“Hard Knock Strife!” I bolted upright in my seat.
Rohan ducked as the pen shattered in my grip, sending plastic shards flying.
“Josh, the lust demon that I–” I shot Rohan a warning look as I tossed pen remnants on the table. “Anyway, he’d been cast in that movie. I didn’t realize it was King’s.” I gnawed on my bottom lip. “How many of the other actors in the gang are demons? Samson is smart enough to cover his tracks. But what about the others? Josh didn’t strike me as the sharpest tool in the shed. Has King worked with other demons before?”
Rohan studied me with a coolly assessing look. “That’s a good idea.”
“Yeah, I get them when the moon lines up with Uranus.”
He didn’t appreciate my wit. “Except we already checked that avenue out. There was one demon that King worked with on a regular basis but my buddy Eyal took him out in Boston a couple of months ago. Probably how your boy Josh got the part.”
Rohan must have seen how bummed I was that I hadn’t provided the golden nugget needed to get close to Samson, because he added, “You’re off to a good start. Eventually, you’ll become a good fighter, too.”
“I have no idea how I specifically killed either Josh or his sister and I’m not thrilled about having to trial and error my way to survive every demon encounter.”
“Then learn about as many demons as possible and where their weak spot is located. That will keep you alive as much as your magic.” Rohan got up and walked over to one of the neatly arranged shelves where he extracted a thin, red, leather-bound book. He flipped through it. “All demons of the same type, say, all araculum, have the same weak spot,” he explained. “It gets trickier with the Uniques, the one-off demons like Lady Midday. In those cases we don’t have the multiple kills that have taught us where to aim for. Though if we’ve had a few encounters, then sometimes we’ve figured out the location for when we finally get close enough to make the kill.”
Rohan brought the open book over to me. He nudged my elbow away to perch on the arm of my chair, shoving the book under my nose.
I read the passage he pointed to. “Okay, this weak spot can be located anywhere in a demon’s body, ranging from the bottom of their foot to behind their eyes.” I scanned the rest of the page. “You know, I always thought that the way to kill a demon was through its heart.”
Rohan snorted. “What do you think a heart is?”
I twisted about half an inch to better face him. My arm skimmed his thigh, his muscles clenching in response. I could do this call and answer with his body part all day. “Does this weak spot have a name?” I asked.
He shifted his weight, his hip resting against my shoulder. “I told you, the heart.”
The words blurred meaninglessly on the page. I felt like I was back in ninth grade at the movie theater with Adam Kim, so focused on the minutiae of movements between our bodies that the entire screen had been a giant white blob.
My chest brushed his forearm. I was more than a bit curious if all this touching was a coincidence on his part or more of some endless game we seemed to be playing. “You aren’t being metaphoric, then.”
“It’s true on many levels.”
I ran my finger over the heart tattoo on his left bicep. “What baggage-laden break up led to this visual reminder, hmmm?”
“Focus.” His breath tickled the back of my neck as he leaned over me.
Dilemma. I was torn between prolonging any part of Rohan touching any part of me and giving in to being a curious kitten. I raised my eyes to his, unable to resist asking. “Come on, who was she?”
Rohan stood up abruptly, snapping the book shut.
Stupid curiosity.
“You can’t be buried in a Jewish cemetery,” I said, trying a different tack. “Not with tattoos.”
That got me a wry smile. “What gives you the impression I think there will be anything left of me to bury?”
Wow. These dudes were grim.
“How am I supposed to know which demon has which weak spot?”
Rohan replaced the book, waving a hand around the library. “You learn.”
Sure, Ari had shared some details of demons and hunting with me, but taking in the plethora of books now, I had a long way to go to even learn the basics. I sighed in resignation. “Where’s my Giles?”
Rohan stared blankly at me.
“You know,” I said, “the stuffy-yet-caring resident librarian mentor who provides helpful and timely info on a demon-by-demon basis?”
“There’s no librarian.” Rohan tapped his head. “You are your own librarian.”
Great. Initiates got a lifetime of mentoring in demonology but I was told to independent study my way through. “Right.”
&nbs
p; I trolled the shelves, running my finger along the spines. Most of the books featured the same publisher’s imprint on their spine: the letters BD in white against a black square background. Made sense that the Brotherhood printed their material in-house. “How about a podcast?”
“No.”
“Cheat sheet?”
Rohan gave a slow, disbelieving shake of his head. “It’s called reading. Your commitment to apathy is impressive.”
I moved to the next bookshelf, tossing him a smile over my shoulder. “Why, Mr. Mitra, you say the sweetest things.”
In the window’s reflection, I caught Rohan massaging his temples. Taunting him was fun, however…“You’re wrong about my impressive commitment,” I said, turning to face him. “It’s not to apathy. You’ve had your entire life to learn this stuff. I’m not against reading. I’m against the amount of time I’d need to get up to speed. Time which, if demons are gunning for me? I don’t have.”
“Cheat sheets.” He looked glum.
“Twelve point Helvetica is fine. Start with the main bad guys, ranking from domain down through species. Or a Demons for Dummies book. With lots of pictures. That works too.”
He brightened. “We have that.” He jogged over to a far corner of the library.
I stared in amazement as he pulled out a fat primer entitled Most Common Demons and presented it to me. “That’s a kids’ book,” I said, frowning at the bright cover.
“Yup.” Rohan shoved it into my chest. I caught it with an unhappy thump. “None of our initiates are dummies,” he said, “but I’m guessing even you can keep up with a seven-year-old’s reading comprehension.” He patted my head.
Did people have weak spots? Or could I just aim for the actual heart with humans? I eyed Rohan, sizing him up.
Kane strolled into the library with a pile of books, whistling when he saw what I held. Seriously, did this guy ever wear proper clothes? “Hel-lo nightmares for days.” He dumped his books on a table, snatched mine out of my hands, and flipped through it. “This sucker frightened me out of my wits.”
I peered at the illustration. “It looks like an evil Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.”
His eyes lit up. “Exactly! It’s a kappa demon from Japan. I lived in terror of it coming after me.”
“Why? Some kind of connection to your heritage?”
He stared at me like I was stupid. “It sucks your entrails out through the ass. Do you know how scary that was to a chubby gay kid?” He gave an exaggerated shudder, handing the book back to me.
“I look forward to finding my own personal nightmare,” I said.
Speaking of Rohan, he rolled his eyes but before he could say anything, there was an unsettling high-pitched whistle from the woods out back.
Kane peered out the window. “Demon.”
I hugged the book to my chest. “Asmodeus?”
“Nope. That was the cry of the curupira.” Kane shot me an odd look. “Why would you think that?”
I sank into a chair, weak-kneed in relief. “You better go kill it.”
“Wrong pronoun, Lolita.” Rohan tugged me to my feet. “Show time.”
8
When my protests of “I’ve only been training for a couple of hours,” and “you should never meet a demon on an empty stomach,” failed to work, I went for Plan B and dug my heels into the grass in the backyard like a little kid.
Rohan hauled me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, ignoring all my pummeling until he’d stepped through a heavy iron door set into the back fence, at which point he dumped me on the ground.
Outside the wards.
I scrambled to my feet.
Rohan whistled some bird call and a moment later Baruch jogged out of the trees, a bruise blossoming on his cheekbone. He nodded when he saw me. “Good. Now you can show us what you did with the brother.”
“Huh?”
As if choreographed, he and Rohan stepped in sync to one side, right as a demon charged me with a chilling growl. Unlike the araculum, this demon was humanoid. Ish. About the height of your standard NBA player, his red eyes burned like glowing coals. Jagged fangs protruded from his fleshy lips and a matted black pelt covered his torso, but the most terrifying thing about him was his enormous cock. It jutted out erect, a non-bobbing zucchini of such knobby rigidity that I wouldn’t have been surprised if he swatted Mack trucks out of his path with it.
This time when I ran screaming, hopping tree roots, and stirring up piles of damp, decomposing leaves, I shot off wild blasts of electricity. My training had really taken.
“I wouldn’t,” Rohan called out. “He’ll just see you as prey.”
“Do what you did to the brother,” Baruch ordered.
I glanced over my shoulder at Penisaurus Rex. Hell, no. Having run in a wide circle back to my starting point, I beelined for Tree Trunk, determined to hide behind him. Yeah, right. As soon as I got within arm’s range, Baruch pushed me back into the demon’s path.
The evil spawn scooped me up from behind and squeezed. Not the boobs! I gritted my teeth against the pain flaring in my sensitive flesh and yanked my knees up to my chest, grateful for my years of tap training and core strength because no way were my parents going to identify my body while impaled on his member.
Pain quickly became my secondary concern. The pressure on my rib cage soon hurtled toward total pulverization. I couldn’t access my magic, couldn’t do anything except be crushed to death. At least I’d have a lovely soundtrack of gaily twittering birds to accompany my death throes.
Keeping me imprisoned with one arm, the curupira scrabbled the fingers of his other hand against my skull, as if trying to pierce the skin.
“He’s going to suck your brains out like a lobster claw,” Rohan said in a conversational tone.
I jerked my head sideways, trying to escape the demon’s sharp fingernail now seeking the right spot to drill down into my head, and was rewarded with a sapling thwack to the cheek.
“Show me how you killed Asmodeus’ bastard,” Baruch said. “When it was just you and him. You’ve got the power. Use it.”
Any second now, I’d black out and become lunch. I clawed at the demon’s arms, desperate to loosen his hold so I could inhale, but there was no shaking him loose.
Assholes one and two did nothing.
My body burned. With rage. A scream tore from my throat as I fired up. The current arcing off my fingertips was a sharp agony. The air stank of burning hair. The demon’s chest, my head.
Visualizing, I slammed my switch on, letting it pulsate with electricity. I imagined it racing through my veins, my very blood alight. My entire body glowed blue, a violent crackle filling my ears.
I slammed my hand onto the demon’s thigh. Hang on. His thigh should have been too big for my hand to curve around.
Damnation, not again! I ripped my hand off his dick and planted it on his hip.
The demon flinched enough to drop me but he didn’t die. I hit the ground in a sprawl, brushing dirt from my eyes, my shin cracking against the edge of a small boulder. “Fuck,” I gasped, gulping down blessed lungfuls of air.
Sparks flew off me, one catching fire on the edge of a dry, rotting log. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rohan spring into action, smothering the wood with wet leaves.
I was more pre-occupied by the fact that even though the demon stood in front of me, I was looking at his heels and not his toes. I didn’t have time to ponder the mystery because he grabbed my hair, yanking a good handful out in my subsequent roll away.
I jumped up. Tiny sparks crunched between the soles of my feet and the dirt, tickling in an itchy sensation.
The demon lunged for me on what I now saw were his backwards feet.
Dancing and bobbing, careful not to trip on the uneven ground, I focused on not being grabbed, because I had no clue how to fight this thing. The only thing that came to mind was Sandra Bullock’s self-defense demo in one of my favorite movies Miss Congeniality. S.I.N.G.
I didn’t think
I could get in close enough to do any damage to his solar plexus but maybe his instep was a possibility. Take him down via his freaky tootsies. I dove onto the ground, rolling to grab his ankle. Once I had a firm grasp, I fired my current into him.
A furious howl tore from his throat and he kicked out, trying to buck me off, but I held strong, so he picked me up by my ankles, facing outward. The forest swung upside down with a sickening blur.
I slid my zapping hands up his sandpapery calves, trying to get a hold on him to break free. Sadly, my attack provoked more than pained him. Still holding me by my ankles, he shook me violently, his bulbous knob poking me in the small of my back. Beyond gross. Trying not to touch it, I shot my magic behind me in what I hoped was the right direction. There was a sizzling sound, like franks on a grill. Though given that his dick fell to the ground wizened and black, his wiener did not plump when you cooked it.
The demon roared, shaking me hard enough to rattle my teeth.
Using what little stamina I had left, I rocked myself backward, getting a firmer grip on his legs. I pretty much pawed him all over, and while my magic had to hurt, my situation seemed pointless until I grabbed and squeezed the demon’s kneecap.
The sweet spot.
The creature was engulfed in current. He dropped me on my back with a hard thunk, as he exploded into red dust. White and blue spots danced before my eyes.
I lay there a moment, letting the tree canopy come into focus before sitting up, rubbing my shoulder, and spitting demony powder out of my mouth. As glad as I was to be alive, I was livid at having been pushed into that little demonstration that way. How about a gentle guiding on day one for the new girl? I glowered at Rohan and Baruch.
They stared back at me gobsmacked, all color drained from their faces. Rohan’s hand snaked protectively in front of his crotch as my eyes met his.
That’s what he took away from this?
I pushed to my feet. There were a million snarky remarks I could have made except I didn’t trust my voice right now. I couldn’t get my ribcage to unconstrict and I was shaking so hard, I’m amazed my brain didn’t plop out.
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-3 (Nava Katz Box Set) Page 9