The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-3 (Nava Katz Box Set)

by Deborah Wilde

  Even after the kiss of regret, I’d been forging ahead, secure in the knowledge that there were certain things I could count on: nothing came between Ari and me, Rohan had my back, and other than demons, people from the Brotherhood were the only ones I had to watch out for.

  In the past few weeks, all those certainties had been blown sky high. I felt like I was balancing on a landmine where not knowing who to trust or what to believe was about to have dire consequences, and boo hoo, I still had to find my way out without being blown to smithereens.

  Leo greeted me dressed in baggy men’s pjs and a scowl. “Why didn’t you tell me you made out with Drio in Prague?”

  “Huh? Because it was coming off the disaster of the wrap party and barely qualified.” I stalked into her apartment. “And how do you know the specifics?”

  She padded into her living room, throwing herself down on her couch and pulling a chunky knit blanket with fringe over her legs. “I asked him.”

  I did a double take. “You what? How? Why?”

  Leo jutted her chin out.

  “Are you seeing him?” I crashed my ass down onto a chair, my jacket falling from my hands onto the floor. “The fuck is going on here?”

  “I’m not seeing him. I ran into him before he left. Things happened.”

  I stared at the giant poster of Andy Warhol’s flowers above her head, sorting and rejecting a dozen responses before I settled on, “Things you didn’t bother to tell me about.”

  It wasn’t particularly gratifying that in the ensuing stare down, Leo blinked first.

  “It’s not all about you,” she said.

  True, but we’d always shared that stuff. I’d have understood, sort of, if she’d known about me and Drio and hadn’t wanted to say anything, but that had been news to her and she’d kept silent anyway. I picked up my jacket, ready to bolt in a cloud of self-righteous anger… and went nowhere. First Rohan, then Ari. I wasn’t ready to have Leo be the next casualty in my disaster of a personal life.

  I gnawed on the inside of my cheek. “Is this because I kept bitching at you about the danger of getting involved with him?”

  “Kind of.” She plucked at one of the tasseled fringes on the blanket. “And kind of that line between our worlds thing.”

  I blew out my cheeks, draping my coat on the back of the chair. “Does he know about you?”

  “No.” Her eyes snapped to mine. “Unlike some.”

  I crossed the room and crawled onto the sofa beside her. “I’m sorry about the club. I never meant for you to be outed.” Leo had left the club before I had that night, and even though I’d left her a gazillion messages apologizing, we’d been playing telephone tag, and this was the first time we’d actually spoken.

  She glared at me a bit longer before deflating. “That’s on me, as well. What’s Ari going to do?”

  “Nothing.” I had to believe that no matter how angry Ari was or how badly he wanted to side with the Brotherhood that I still knew him well enough to be certain that when it came to Leo, he wouldn’t hurt her.

  I crossed my fingers and toes for a second anyway.

  Leo gnawed on a cuticle.

  I grabbed her hand. Sure enough, she’d bitten herself ragged. I smacked her. “Stop self-cannibalizing.”

  Leo growled but scooted over enough for me to lay on my side facing her. “Enough about all the Rasha. What else is new and exciting?” she asked.

  “I want to hear about you and Drio.”

  “I haven’t decided if I’m going to tell you yet, seeing as you didn’t tell me first.”

  “It was a non-starter. There wasn’t much to tell.” I fluttered my eyelashes at her. “Can I interest you in a marid serial killer?”

  Yeah, that got her eyes lighting up with a feverish gleam. “Perhaps. Tell me more.”

  “He’s on the loose and I have no clue how to kill him.”

  She frowned. “You sure it’s a marid?”

  “Yup. Why?”

  “Fire demons have fiery personalities. Sure, they kill but if they go after someone, it would be more personal, if that makes sense.”

  “Maybe cold calculation is from his water side,” I suggested.

  She shook her head. “Water is a secondary power. It doesn’t rule their natures.”

  “Okay, well, he drew the Arabic word for love on his victims and he’d been in a relationship with one. At least from her perspective. Love gone wrong? Crime of passion?”

  “How many victims?”

  “Seven.” I snagged a couch cushion that had fallen on the floor and stuffed it under my head. “In just over two weeks.”

  “Seven crimes of passion in two weeks? It’s plausible. If he’s a fourteen-year-old girl. Marids are ancient beings. This isn’t a case of too many crushes.”

  “We may never know why he killed them. It may just come down to how we kill him.” I sniffed the air. “Are you making curry?”

  “Neighbor.” Too bad. It smelled really good.

  “You need to find the marid’s weakness,” Leo said.

  “We know his weak spot. He keeps bursting into flame before we can hit it.”

  “Weakness, Nee. Not weak spot. There’s a difference.”

  “Is an ancient demon going to have a weakness?”

  “Something that powerful that’s survived thousands of years? Their ego is unchecked. For sure, he has a weakness.”

  I sighed, stuck on the many weaknesses in my own life these days.

  “You don’t want to expand on your feelings surrounding that sigh, do you?” she asked.

  “Nope. Noooo. Naw.”

  She nodded in relief.

  I tugged some of the blanket onto me. “You knit this one? It’s gorgeous.” Deep reds and blues and soft as a cloud. I snuggled into it.

  “Yeah. While I was binge watching Santa Clarita Diet.”

  “Rohan is a giant jerk.”

  She pulled the pillow out from under my head and swatted me in the face. “You’re pathetic. You had your chance to share and you missed it.”

  “That was on topic.”

  “Really? Rohan is a risk-averse, middle-aged woman with a new zest for life thanks to turning zombie?”

  I scrunched up my face. “Rohan’s from L.A. The show takes place in L.A. Ish.”

  She swatted me again. “If I’m going to be subjected to a Mitra monologue, at least tell me something juicy.”

  “So only I’m supposed to share?”

  She grinned. “Naw. I’m gonna foist all the dirty details on you. But you first so I can judge.”

  I shot her the finger. She smothered me with the pillow.

  “All right!” I said in a muted voice, fighting not to be asphyxiated. I tossed the cushion across the room. “I took Rohan on a date after Cole showed up at the club asking for a second chance.”

  Leo stuffed her freezing cold feet between my legs. “Whatcha doing there, girl?”

  “Driving Rohan out of town and auditioning my transitional?”

  “Your delusions are strong, grasshopper.”

  “No. I’m pretty sure I’ve driven him out of town now.”

  “You don’t sound too chipper about that.”

  I mimed shooting myself in the head, then flung my arm over my eyes. “Do you ever miss being sixteen?”

  “Don’t romanticize it. You couldn’t wait to grow up and start your life.”

  “I want a do-over. Appreciate how good I had it then.” A tenor outside on the street sang a beautiful aria, his voice growing fainter and fainter. “Can I stay here tonight?”

  Leo rubbed her nose against mine. “Yes.”

  “Can I borrow something to sleep in?”

  “Of course.” She hopped up off the couch, returning shortly with a pair of sweats and a T-shirt that she tossed at me.

  It was a Fugue State Five concert tee. “You’re a cow.”

  Leo beamed at me.

  “For that, we have to watch Grease.”

  Leo planted her head on her
hips. “Is this a happy singalong viewing, a maudlin belting out of ‘Hopelessly Devoted’ viewing, or a fierce declaration with ‘There Are Worse Things I Could Do?’”

  I pulled the blanket over my head. It really was soft.

  Leo patted my back. “Okay, pumpkin. Put on the movie. I’ll make the popcorn.” She snickered. “And then get ready to hear everything.”

  I smiled with the blithe happiness of an idiot who had no clue how much danger she’d be in tomorrow, and reached for the remote.

  The light of a new day plus having hung out with my best friend–with only the tiniest twinge of regret for the sexytimes I’d missed out on with Drio–made a world of difference. Okay, a small city block of difference but at least I woke up on Friday ready to jump back in to the investigation.

  I hadn’t tried to dissuade Leo from seeing Drio if and when he returned, but I had let her know that I had her back. If shit went seriously south with him, I was gonna be there to help with the fallout. Like I would if Ari tried anything stupid.

  I headed over to Daniel’s place, since at the moment, he was the strongest connection to Malik that we had, pulling up to the curb right as my brother showed up. There was no conversation beyond a chilly “Good morning.” We marched up the front stairs and simultaneously knocked on the door.

  No answer.

  Ari leaned sideways off the balcony to peer in through the slit in the curtains. “Oh shit.” He yanked a small lock pick set from his inside coat pocket and, removing a tool, had the door open in seconds.

  The place was trashed: broken furniture strewn about the living room and a huge black scorch mark on the wooden floor.

  “Daniel!” I ran through every room on the main floor, Ari’s footsteps pounding up the stairs.

  “Nothing,” he called out.

  “There’s a basement.” I flung open the door in the kitchen, fumbled for the light switch, and booted it downstairs, terrified I’d find Daniel’s lifeless corpse.

  All I found was a gurgling water tank in a half-finished basement, next to a washer and dryer, its door open. Half of the clean laundry had been dumped in a hamper, the rest still inside the machine.

  Rust edged the bottom of the tank and a small yogurt container had been placed under the spout to catch the drips, except it had fallen over. I crouched down to straighten it and a flash of white under the tank caught my eye.

  I pulled out a fat black felt pen.

  “He’s not here,” Ari said from the staircase.

  I held up the marker.

  “Fuck.” Ari smacked the wall. “Malik’s got him.”

  “You think he’s still alive?” We ran upstairs.

  “I have no idea. Malik didn’t take the others. He just killed them.”

  “What makes Daniel different? Assuming he didn’t escape?”

  “Let’s see if we can find out,” Ari said. “At the very least, find something with his full name on it so we can call and see if he’s on duty.”

  We found a bill laying half under the sofa, next to the wreckage of the coffee table. “Daniel Walsh. Ace, did we do this? Because we had a stupid fight and didn’t warn him? Didn’t check on him?”

  “I did check on him. I swung by last night. He was fine. Even had a couple of friends over.” He squatted down and touched the burned wood. “It’s still warm.”

  “Malik can keep his fire from burning anything when he wants to,” I said. “So did he not want to or did he lose control?” I shivered, covered in goosebumps. Not merely like someone walking over my gravesite, like someone was walking over me and pushing their way inside.

  Ari nodded that he’d felt it too, then cocked his head listening, but all was silent.

  I called up my magic, a ball of current curved in my palm.

  The air grew heavy as Ari reached into the shadows. Darkness coiled around his arm like a whip, he motioned for us to split up.

  If Malik was here we found no sign of him. Though I did find a metal box in Daniel’s tiny office upstairs containing photos of him over the years, ranging from a toddler grinning and hoisted on the shoulders of his police officer dad, through awkward childhood poses, and good times with friends. There was also a birth certificate listing Daniel’s place of birth as Malaysia. That must have been his mother’s heritage since in the photos, Daniel’s dad was Caucasian.

  Ari entered the room and I showed him what I’d found. “I hope we don’t have to inform his parents of his death,” I said.

  “Not today we won’t. I called the VPD. He’s on-duty.”

  “Seriously?” I sat down, exhaling heavily. “Did you talk to him?”

  “No. I left a message asking him to call me. Stressed it was urgent. If Daniel was here when Malik destroyed the place then he’s seen the marid for what he really is. Hopefully he’s smart enough to stay away.”

  “And if Daniel left for work before Malik arrived? If Malik was furious that he missed him?”

  Ari placed his hand on my shoulder and guided me out of the room. “Then let’s hope we get to Daniel before Malik does.”

  Our ride back to Demon Club was conducted in silence but not the angry kind. As soon as we got inside, Ari called out for Kane to meet us in the library.

  “What?” Kane joined us, but he refused to look at my brother.

  Ari looked like he wanted to say something, then nudged my foot under the table.

  “Can you find the marid for us with your mad computer skills?” I asked. We’d already confirmed that Malik wasn’t at his studio and the person manning the phone at the artists’ collective either didn’t have or wasn’t willing to give out Malik’s personal contact information. “At least find his iPhone or something.”

  Ari smothered a laugh.

  “That is so insulting,” Kane huffed. “Should the demon have even a hovel to call his own, I will find its exact GPS coordinates.”

  “You’re the best.”

  “Stating the obvious. Here.” Kane slapped a folded piece of paper into my hand.

  “Are these the ingredients for the magic-testing spell?”

  “That can wait,” Ari said. “We need to pin Malik down.”

  “Thanks for explaining the priority. My feeble girl brain couldn’t sort that out.” I smoothed out the paper. “I’ll deal with this later.”

  “Whatever,” Ari said.

  “Far be it for me to ever choose vag over a giant dick,” Kane said, “but I agree with Nava. The questions surrounding the spine need to be dealt with.”

  I scanned the list. “Where do I get Snowdonia Hawkweed?”

  “It’s extremely rare,” Kane said. “I was able to find one sketchy supplier in Rio with a very limited supply. One plant limited.”

  “Then time is of the essence.”

  “Good luck,” Kane said.

  “Kane.”

  Kane ignored my brother and left the room.

  “He’s still mad about Malik?” I said. Sure, Ari shouldn’t have kissed him to work off his attraction to a demon but on the other hand, Kane knew how shit could happen when dealing with evil spawn. “Kane seems to have a lot of lines thou shalt not cross.”

  Ari laughed bitterly. “It’s more of a spiderweb.”

  I clutched the ingredient list. “Ari, my most wonderful brother–”

  “So much for ‘later.’”

  “In and out. We can do this in like half an hour.”

  “No.”

  “Please. Kane needs time to find Malik anyway. And you said you wouldn’t interfere.”

  “Book a flight to Rio. I won’t say a word. But I’m not going to actively help you in this insane quest.” He dropped his voice. “It’s bad enough you’re keeping that demon here. What will they do if they find out you’re casting spells?”

  I just needed him for this one quick trip, then I’d prove what the Brotherhood was up to and watch Rome burn. “I invoke ‘Thistleton.’”

  Mrs. Thistleton had been a neighbor of ours who’d constantly asked us to help
her out and had perfected the art of the guilt trip. We’d made her name into a joke password between us, where the other person would have to agree to do something, no questions asked, or endure torturous amounts of guilt.

  “And I’m invoking ‘not gonna help you,’” Ari said.

  “You can’t. It’s Thistleton.”

  “Can and did.”

  I crossed my arms. “Then I invoke ‘you owe me because I made you Rasha.’”

  Ari smiled thinly. “You held out way longer than I expected on lording that over me.”

  “Are you going to help me or not?”

  “Not.” He brushed past me.

  “If you don’t do this for me, I swear I’ll never speak to you again.”

  He turned to face me. “You don’t mean that.”

  “Try me.”

  His eyes were cool.

  What was happening to the two of us? Bad enough my constant fears about our twinness these days, now I found myself doubting our past. My entire life I’d been so certain of our unassailable sibling connection, but with every new conversation we had I was plagued with doubt.

  I suppressed a shiver. Was his silence him calling my bluff or not wanting to call it? I didn’t actually want to know. “Then do this for Leo.”

  “Why should I help a PD?”

  “Because it’s Leo and you’re not an asshole. The spine is already connected to the Brotherhood and if it’s the means of binding demons? Greedy humans being able to harness demon power? That puts Leo at risk of being used. Please.”

  “Give me the damn address,” he snarled.

  I exhaled. It was hollowest victory ever. I mean, yay, he cared about Leo, I just wasn’t certain he cared about me.

  Without warning, Ari grabbed my wrist. The air heated and the cool light of a drizzly Vancouver day was replaced by an all-pervasive green as we stepped out under a familiar steel tower with a round viewing platform way up top.

  The throng of people readjusted themselves around us without a second glance.

  I swallowed the metallic bile in my throat. “Holy shit, we’re in Seattle.”

  Intellectually aware that we were invisible to the tourists, business people, moms pushing strollers, and hipsters with lattes flowing around us like we were rocks in a stream didn’t keep me from scanning the area.