“What did you do to her?” I demanded.
“The barest kiss to get her in the mood. It wasn’t her choice but desperate times. Who wants wine?” He led Leo to the seating area, then left her there like she was a statue for our viewing pleasure.
I made a sound halfway between strangled disbelief and impressed awe at the power of that kiss. “What happened to not hurting humans?”
Oh, his feline smile wasn’t smug at all. “She doesn’t really count, does she? Being a PD and all.”
Ari sank onto the couch, his head buried in shaking hands.
Leo didn’t react to the derogatory term. She just stood there paused until Malik directed her otherwise.
“I could have a lot of fun with her. Oh, don’t worry, petal,” he said, “I’d snap her out of her daze to give me her full consent.” He tilted his head, raking a slow gaze over her. “Goblin women.” He whistled. “Feisty.”
I stood protectively in front of my friend. “You knew that Daniel was killing them.”
“The Arabic word for love,” Ari said. “He wrote it for you.”
I glanced at Leo but there was no change. “Did you send him the victims yourself or just get off on knowing what that fucker was doing to impress you?”
Malik poured the blood-red wine into one glass. “I didn’t know. At first.”
“Once you did?” Ari prompted.
Malik looked off toward the window before meeting our gaze. “I chose what mattered more.” He downed the wine.
Daniel was Malik’s weakness. Ari and Leo were mine.
I willed my best friend to snap out of it. To clench her fist at me for being the world’s biggest douchebag for having brought this on her. Do something resembling anything, but all she did was stand there with a vacant adoring beam.
“I promise you she’ll enjoy every second,” Malik said. “She’ll die with a smile on her face.”
He didn’t have to take it that far, but I had no doubt that he would. “What do you want?”
He gave Leo one last look before adopting a more business-like tone. “Daniel for Leonie. I leave the choice up to you two.”
“Why do we get a choice?” I said. “Compel us into letting Daniel go free.”
“As I’ve already told you, I don’t have that ability. Trust me, if I did, you two would know. I’m surprised you even have to think about it, Ari,” Malik said. “What with your clearly defined morality and all. I’d have thought Leonie was acceptable collateral damage.”
“The only acceptable collateral damage is you,” Ari said.
“That’s adorable.” Two Rasha in the room with him making death threats and all he did was lick a drop of wine off his finger, giving zero fucks. “Your choice is Daniel or Leonie. Tick tock.” Malik shook the bottle, then set it on the counter. He headed for wine cube. “Cabernet this time.”
I scoped out the room. Too high to jump, not that the windows opened or there was a sliding door. No way to get to the front door before Malik stopped us. No way to kill him. No shadows here for Ari to jump us into the EC since Malik had doctored the lights to full wattage.
I wanted to scream in frustration. Daniel was going to get away. As was Malik.
Malik returned carrying a new bottle.
Ari flicked his eyes to the window.
I looked but didn’t see anything. It was night. It was dark.
Malik screwed in the corkscrew and popped the cork free. “What have you decided?”
“No deal,” Ari said.
When the marid’s attention was on the glass of wine he was pouring for himself, Ari narrowed his eyes and motioned subtly outside.
I frowned.
He kicked me, pointing at Leo and jerking his chin at the window, mouthing the words “twin war.”
Ow. And oh.
I punched him in the arm about five times. “We. Are. Not. Leaving. Leo.”
Ari glared at me, my body blocking him from Malik’s view. “Overdoing it,” he muttered.
“So glad I was an only child,” Malik said, coming over to us with his glass. “Hurry up and reach consensus.”
I backed off, putting a protective arm around my friend. “Snap her out of it. You win. Leo for Daniel.”
Ari growled in frustration, then nodded.
Malik snapped his fingers.
“Nava?” Leo blinked dopily. “What’s going on?”
I tightened my hold on her. “Can we go now?”
“No. Daniel needs time to leave town.” Malik pulled out his phone, texting Daniel, his head bent over the screen.
Ari touched three fingers to his thigh. Two.
I gathered my magic, fired it at the window…
…and watched my strike go wild as Malik grabbed my wrist and broke it.
“Fuuuuuuuuck!” Magic exploded out of my skin, wine staining my skin like blood.
Glass exploded behind me with a thunderous crash.
A red haze filled my vision. Electricity pounded out of me like bullets from an Uzi, peppering Malik.
He gasped.
His flames swirled tighter and denser, the voltage racking through him. My magic slid through his fire like…
“Charged particles. I read about this.” Ari pushed to his feet. “Hold him, Nee. You’re putting him out.”
The very shape of the demon’s flames morphed. Every other time he’d gone fiery, he’d been in control, keeping the outline of a human form. This time there was no shape, merely a jagged blazing starburst; the only identifying features his eyes, now open wide.
“Keep the current oscillating,” Ari made a back and forth motion with his hands. “But go hard.”
Acting on pure impulse, I made a scooping motion with my good hand as if turning up the dial, the broken one cradled against my chest.
Malik shrunk into himself, getting smaller and smaller. An enraged roar poured out from deep in the center of the flames, bouncing off the walls.
“Holy shitsticks,” Leo said, clapping her hands over her ears.
The reds and blues of the marid’s flame grew weaker, his cries of rage quieting.
“No!”
There was a second of stunned surprise as Ari and I locked eyes with Daniel, who’d appeared, still in uniform. His features were twisted in fury.
Ari drew in shadow through the broken window from the night sky, coiled it around his arm, and snapped it like a whip at Daniel’s wrist.
Daniel placed his hand on the shadow, a ripple rolling out from his flesh up to Ari’s shoulder. My brother shivered violently, all the color draining from his face. Even though to witness Ari’s magic was to swear it had depth and weight, it was still shadows. Still intangible, but Daniel grabbed onto the magic, snapping its hold.
He pulled his gun, grabbed Leo, and jammed the barrel to her head.
Thanks to the glaring bright lights, I could see exactly how bad–and how unhinged–Daniel was: bloodshot eyes, wrinkled uniform, his hair sticking up every which way like he’d run his hands through it one too many times. “Let Malik go,” he said.
Malik had almost sputtered out. I could end him, but could we take Daniel down faster than he could kill Leo?
If I released Malik, I’d have to tell Mandelbaum that it was my fault that the demon got away. Even though he wasn’t the serial killer, he was an ancient being of unimaginable power. It would be career suicide. Or my death warrant. Either by the Brotherhood or the marid himself.
Daniel cocked the trigger. “Decide.”
I shut down my magic.
Corporeal once more, Malik dragged in a deep breath, collapsing back against the wall with a hard thud.
“Go,” Daniel urged.
Malik hesitated and Daniel stared him down, not removing the gun from Leo. Pale, she was a wall of tense muscle, but her chin was jutted up in defiance.
“You foolish boy.” Malik lay his hand on Daniel’s cheek. He tilted his head at Ari and me. “Until next time, Rasha.” Then he disappeared.
“Saving himself. Big surprise
.” Ari parked himself at my left shoulder.
I appreciated the solidarity but I wasn’t taking my eyes off Daniel’s weapon. Sweat ran in a thin line between my shoulder blades. “A gun? That’s cheating. Have you no sense of demon pride?”
“I’m not a monster!” Daniel’s hand shook. The one holding the lethal weapon.
My heart stuttered, stopped, then tried to crawl up my throat. “No one said you were.” Please. He was totally a monster. He’d killed seven people. What did he think that made him? A Nobel Peace Prize winner?
“Why don’t you put the gun down and talk to us?” Ari said. “Tell us what’s going on.”
“I just wanted him to love me.” His hand tightened on the grip.
“Easy.” I held up a hand. The good one since the broken one still dangled uselessly. Though it was highly efficient in producing copious amounts of pain.
“By killing seven people?” Ari said.
Leo sucked in a breath. “Whoa.”
Pain twisted Daniel’s features. “I couldn’t help it. This darkness just took over.”
“Bullshit. We’ve all got darkness in us and yeah, it’s harder when it’s literal evil, but that makes the humanity that much more precious. And as a cop? You of all people should have understood that.”
“Leo,” I snapped. “Shut up.”
“Let her go, Daniel.” Ari spoke quietly, his hand outstretched for the gun.
Daniel turned pleading eyes on me. “You have no idea what it was like to love him and know that he didn’t return it. It didn’t matter how much I proved I was the only one for him, I was just one of many.”
The kicker? I felt bad for the guy. Part of him was still human and that part of him was in a lot of pain. I wasn’t excusing his actions, there were no excuses, but I could empathize with at least part of his situation.
“You didn’t prove your worth.” Ari sneered. “You destroyed any chance of the one thing, the one person you wanted. You killed his lovers, Daniel. Even Malik didn’t want you after that. Jakayla, Davide, Max, Reuben, Ellen.” With each name Ari stepped closer to Daniel.
“That poor Jane Doe,” I added. “Did you even know her name?
Daniel whimpered.
“Tell me. Give her family some closure.”
“Anna. Rodriguez.” He whispered her name. I wish we could have prevented Anna’s death, but if learning her identity meant her family could give her a proper burial, instead of always wondering what had happened to her, I’d take it as a win.
“You killed your own friend, Mara,” Ari said.
Daniel’s face pulled tight with grief.
“They had lives. Families. You couldn’t fully possess them like a pure hantu so you took them over just enough to drain their life force.” Ari veered off to Daniel’s left, so I went right, forcing Daniel to pick a target.
He chose Ari. Was it wrong of me to feel relieved? Didn’t care. Gun barrels were fucking terrifying things to be on the wrong end of.
With Daniel’s attention focused on my brother, I sidled in until I was close enough to knock Leo away, pushing her behind me.
Daniel groaned, a low sound of raw anguish. “What I have become? I just loved him so much.”
“Let him stand trial,” I said.
“Are you kidding?” Leo asked.
“Yes,” Daniel said. “Make me face human justice.”
“Nava.” Ari shook his head.
I’d never had a problem killing a PD when they deserved it, and if anyone deserved it, it was Daniel. But his humanity was radiating out at me from behind his hope-filled eyes and I couldn’t do it.
“I guess we’re not equals after all, Ace.”
“You are. You have to be.”
“You mean I have to save my own skin.”
“That too.” Ari nodded sadly and tapped his left temple.
“What do you mean?” Daniel looked between us, confused. “Arrest me.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m so, so sorry,” I said, and zapped his kill spot.
Daniel’s eyes widened in surprise and he disappeared. Right as a big bang like a firework echoed through the apartment.
My shoulder splintered and I stumbled backward.
Out the window.
24
Fall thirty stories backward into the night and tell me you wouldn’t scream.
Wind and my life rushed past. Blood streamed out of the bullet wound torn into my shoulder, hot drops flicking against my face. Being shot was exactly as horrible as seen on TV. Gripping my shoulder with blood-slicked hands, my nerves locked in full-tilt agony kept me busy for the first ten or so floors but thirty stories was a really long way to fall.
I had to take a break from my screaming because my throat was getting raw.
Closer and closer the ground came. I fired my magic, but lighting is not a handy spiderweb and gravity continued winning. To make matters worse, using my power had twisted me around so that I now fell face down.
Time to scream again.
Fifty feet… thirty… twenty… This was not going to be pretty.
I closed my eyes.
A hand hooked around my leg. The world snapped into EC, the night sky replaced with a deep green light. We crashed onto the grass, landing hard and rolling apart. Light morphed from green back to midnight blue, thin clouds drifting slowly overhead.
Ari whooped. “I wasn’t sure that would work.”
I lay sprawled on my back, breathing through the burn, tears streaming down my face and my hand cradling my shoulder.
“Are you two okay?” Leo’s voice reached us before she did. She skidded to a stop, having run out the front door of the building.
“If you’re being flexible with the definition.” I started panting.
Leo whipped off her sweater, pressing it against my shoulder. “Nee, hang in there. Ari, do something.”
“I don’t have the energy to jump us,” Ari said. “We have to drive. Can you stand?”
Perhaps if I hadn’t been dehydrated, failed to kill a marid, and blasted a window open to fall out a penthouse window, I might have managed. As it was, I laughed long and hard with a tinge of hysteria. “Nope. I’m just going to lay here indefinitely until you get me some freaking drugs.”
Leo prodded my shoulder.
I screamed and smacked her hand away. “Don’t touch it!”
“I don’t think our healing covers expelling bullets,” Ari said. “I’m calling Kane.”
“Nooo,” I wailed. “He’ll bring Rohan.”
Ari sat down beside me. “Then you have to let me pick you up and get you to the doctor.”
“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth.
Between the two of them, they managed to prop me in the front seat, Leo’s sweater packed between my shoulder and the seat belt.
We took Leo home first. She’d snapped out of any remnants of her demon-inspired daze, but she was furious, sitting in the back seat vowing all kinds of painful retributions on the marid. Swearing she was going to call in every single favor from every demon client ever. She ran out of steam midway through a visceral description of how she’d start his disembowelment. Between one word and the next, all her energy left her and she sagged forward in a limp heap.
“Leo?” I mumbled.
“I’m fine.”
Ari pulled up in front of her place.
“You want me to come back and stay with you tonight?” I may have only managed every other word of that sentence, but she got it.
“No, thanks. I’ll call Madison.”
“I see.”
She gave me a cute pout. “Don’t be mad. She cheers me up with orgasms.”
“Eh. I’d take that, too.”
She flashed me a wavery grin. “Schmugs, Nee.”
“Schmugs.”
“Keep the sweater.” She opened the passenger door, half twisting back to Ari. “Thanks for deciding I was worth saving, asshole.”
Ari flung his door open, limping to catch up to her. I
couldn’t hear what he said to her but she rolled her eyes at him and he gave her a giant hug.
Then I blacked out a bit until my brother slapped my cheek gently. “Nee, stay with me.”
The blur of lights as we drove past storefronts made me nauseous. I pressed my cheek against the cold window. “Do people die of shoulder wounds?”
“No.”
“I’m gonna be the first, okay? I was born second but sometimes I’m first. First in my tap competitions. First girl Rasha. First at blowing up my life in spectacular fashion.” That wasn’t as cool an accomplishment.
“You’re not going to die,” Ari said.
I shivered, which combined with a bullet wound was totally indicative of impending death. “Why didn’t you ever say anything about your sleep terrors continuing? Be honest. Since I’m dying.”
“Fucking hell,” he muttered. “I didn’t want to be seen as weak, all right? I was going to be the best hunter ever.”
My hands went clammy. “Ohmigod, I AM dying!”
“What?”
“You never share your feelings.” I thunked my head back against the seat, glad of the seatbelt locking me in place. Otherwise, between my swimming vision and mild sensation of vertigo, I’d have slid onto the floor by now. My Rasha healing had numbed my pain but it was fogging my brain up. Everything took on a dreamy cast. “Tell Mom and Dad, well, I can’t think of anything, but you’re good at that stuff so make something up. I’ve written the eulogy for you and there’s a playlist on my phone called ‘Nava, You Irreplaceable You’ for everyone to mourn to.”
Ari removed his hand from the steering wheel to clasp mine. “Any last words for Rohan?”
I let out a croaky eep.
“Breathe.” Ari slapped my cheek again. “I was kidding. You’re not dying.”
I pressed my palm against the wound hoping it would diffuse the pain. It didn’t. “Well then I don’t need to apologize for the position I put you in because I know how much being part of the Brotherhood means to you and I’m going to figure out what they’re up to. But I hope we’re always on the same side anyway because the alternative is unbearable.”
To me, the speech sounded highly eloquent, like one step removed from Evita on her balcony singing to the common people. Ari, however, leaned over me, his face scrunched up. “I think I got most of that slurfest.”
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-3 (Nava Katz Box Set) Page 83