The Unlikeable Demon Hunter

by Deborah Wilde

  I could watch that.

  “We’ll have the proof to take Samson down in no time.” Drio did a quick one-two step. “Prague, here we come!”

  “Why Prague?” I asked.

  “The final part of the production is being shot there.” Drio eyed me up and down, one hand braced on the counter. “Want to go?”

  “Suuuure.” I pointed to the stairs. “I’ll pack my bags.”

  “I’m serious.” He jerked his index finger up and down my body. “You’re attractive enough.”

  I fluttered my hands in front of my face. “You think so?” I dropped the act. “Attractive enough for what?”

  “Yes, Drio,” Rohan said. “Whatever are you up to?”

  Drio’s hands gestured excitedly as the words tumbled out of him. “You doing the song opens up a bunch of new ways to plant more Rasha in the inner circle. As part of your entourage, I’ll be vetted by his posse no problem.” He jerked his thumb at me. “And any ‘friend,’” he used air quotes, “of the great Rohan Mitra’s…”

  “Hell no,” Rohan growled.

  I punched Drio. “I’m not whoring out for a demon.”

  “You don’t have to fuck him,” he said. “But you’re his type. Be a tease. I don’t care. The more people we have on him, the faster we take him down. Besides, you’re a good Rasha,” he added grudgingly.

  Wow.

  Still, any plan of Drio’s to send me in and play nice with a demon needed to be examined inside and out for all the possible ways I could end up dead. I started with Baruch, dropping the comment casually in during a training session the next day. “Drio wants me to go to Prague undercover and get close to Samson for proof he’s a demon. What do you think?”

  I startled my trainer enough that I managed to land a right hook on his jaw. A first.

  “Ben zona,” Baruch swore. “No.”

  “It wasn’t a yes or no question, Tree Trunk. I could help.” I raised my fists back up to my face.

  “You have no experience.” He corrected my stance.

  I laughed. “Getting guys? That’s pretty much the most experience I have.”

  “Outing demons. You don’t have to do this.”

  Oh, I knew that, but I figured that the Brotherhood would, too. Sure, Ari would be taken care of now but they were still undecided on me. I wanted to change that.

  “Scale of one to ten,” I asked later, “with one being me coming out unharmed and ten being my grisly remains found twenty years from now. Where do you put this job?”

  “Fifty-seven,” Kane said. We sat on the front porch, Kane keeping me company “for no reason” but really because Ari was coming over.

  “You don’t think I could do it?”

  “I don’t think I could do it and I’ve pulled straight boys with the best of them.” Kane wagged a finger at me. “King is dangerous. And not in the fun way that makes you do that moaning sound that I find highly irritating to have to hear, child who has not processed that my room is directly over Rohan’s.”

  I blushed.

  Ari showed up, looking between me still totally embarrassed and Kane, legs splayed in his Adirondack chair. “Do I want to know?” he asked.

  “Your sister is being very naughty.”

  “That would be a no, then.”

  “Also, she has a death wish.” Kane got up. “Talk to her.” He swatted me across the top of the head and went inside.

  Ari sat down in the vacated chair and held out a gift bag.

  “What’s this?” I pulled out a giant box from the fancy-ass chocolatier I loved but could never really afford.

  “Because you believed in me.”

  “Aww, Ace.” I kissed his cheek.

  He allowed one peck before he swatted me off. “What was Kane babbling about?”

  “Prague.” I explained the situation and why I wanted to do it.

  “You’re not ready.”

  “I’m Rasha.” I lit up my hand. “I am not without resources.” I flexed my fingers. “Ever since I became a hunter, I’ve been focused on doing this job to survive or prove a point that I wasn’t a total fuck up. But I’ve missed having something to be passionate about and being Rasha might be it. You were right. I am happy. At least, I’m starting to be.”

  Ari was silent for a while. “Okay.”

  “Also, I–wait. Okay?”

  He nodded. “You’re right. You’re Rasha. This wouldn’t even be a discussion if you were a guy. And the passion for the gig? I get it.”

  “We are going to be the coolest super twins ever.” I broke open the chocolates. While I chose mine by shape most likely to contain nuts, Ari carefully studied the legend. My first choice contained a macadamia so I nailed it. Next I went for a dark chocolate surprise. “So you don’t think the Prague idea is a subtle murder plot by Drio?”

  “No. Though once Samson’s dead, you might want to watch your back. Sweet! Hedgehog.”

  “Wait!” I tried to grab the chocolate, but Ari stuffed it in his mouth before I could. “No fair. There was only one of those.”

  “You snooze, you loose,” he said through a mouthful.

  “So much for gratitude.”

  He looked at me like I was insane. “It was a hedgehog. You’d push me into traffic for one.” I couldn’t argue with that, though I did make sure and eat his second favorite flavor of Mexican hot chocolate truffle next.

  Once I had Ari’s support, blessing, and common sense take on the matter, I gave Drio my assent. He told me that he was waiting for official permission from the Brotherhood, but that he expected the call soon.

  I hurried downstairs to Rohan’s room, rapping softly on the door. “Hey, Snowflake.” My plan was to keep things professional. He hadn’t said word one to me about the tap shoes so I was taking that to mean it had simply been a kind gesture from a colleague.

  Rohan stepped out from behind his half-open closet door, dressed in tight black jeans and a white T-shirt, his hair spiky and gelled. And, oh my, he was wearing eyeliner.

  He grinned his rock fuck grin.

  I clutched the doorframe in support as every bone in my legs dissolved into jelly. “I’ve decided to go to Prague.” My voice came out in a squeak.

  “I heard.” He advanced on me, pure strut. The light caught the silver of his multiple rings on each hand.

  I eeped and held onto the doorframe harder. “Maybe I’ll run into you while I’m there.”

  I prayed that Prague was a big enough city that that absolutely would not happen, because with him dressed like this and in full rock god mode, I didn’t stand a chance.

  “I’m sticking close to have your back on this assignment.” He skimmed his hand over my hip, the warmth of the black leather strap worn with a single fat silver bracelet on his right wrist brushing against my skin.

  “Dressed like that?” I stammered. My heart beat a furious tempo at the clear and present danger of this incarnation of Rohan. I flapped a hand at him. “Surely, you don’t have to go zero to a billion? Start small.”

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about how you missed dancing like breathing.” His arrogance fell away, leaving a soft vulnerability that hit me harder than the rock god look. “It made me realize that I’d been holding my breath, too. That, after Asha, I hadn’t thought I deserved music in my life.” His gaze turned penetrating. “I hadn’t admitted that to anyone. Not even myself until now. Until you.”

  I had to jump start my breathing. “Happy I could help,” I squeaked. I tried to step away but he held me fast. Careful what you wish for, idiot. I swallowed, his raw charisma flooding my system.

  “I’m meeting with Forrest about the song. And I wrangled an intro to King. Now I need more of an entourage than just Drio.” He leaned in, his lips hovering over mine. “You were nominated and won as groupie.”

  “Mazel tov to me,” I murmured, practically pulling the frame off the wall. My mouth was dry and my brain had gone wonky and stupid in the face of his pure male swagger. Oh, how misguided I’d been w
ith my whole “players and their games” insight I’d had on Rohan.

  I hadn’t even begun to see his game because Rohan Mitra had been slumming in the junior league with me. Nope, I was screwed, and this time, I didn’t think I’d get a say in how.

  End of Book One

  Thank you for reading

  Dear fabulous reader,

  Thank you for giving me the gift of your time and I hope you’ve enjoyed the beginning of Nava’s journey. These characters are definitely close to my heart (and my inability to say the loud part quiet). I promise you the rest of the series will be a wild ride.

  I’ve had so many people fall in love with Nava, Rohan, and the rest of the crew. It’s great hearing your thoughts, so stay in touch.

  Now, I have a favor to ask. It’s your reviews that help other readers to find my books. You, the reader, help make or break a book. So please, especially if you want more Nava and Rohan, spread the word. Leave an honest review of The Unlikeable Demon Hunter on Amazon, Goodreads, your blog, etc.

  xo

  Deborah

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  “Shove it in already,” I said through gritted teeth. My back was freezing from the damp, flaking basement concrete I lay against, while the two-foot-tall, rat-shaped demon pinning me down was doing shit for my front.

  Rohan Mitra, rock star turned demon hunter, shook his tousled dark hair, his full lips puckering in obvious disgust. “I’m not putting my finger in there. You want it so badly, do it yourself.”

  I slammed an elbow into the underside of the vral’s jaw, whiplashing her head sideways, intent on keeping the demon’s double row of razor-sharp incisors out of my shoulder. One bite and I’d be paralyzed.

  And lunch.

  “Now you’re going to get all pussy about sticking your finger places it doesn’t belong?”

  “I’ll reconsider if she begs as nicely as you did, Nava.”

  The vral snapped her teeth at me, the sound a loud crack in my ear. Her dank, rotten-meat belch wafted over me.

  I tried to plug my nose with my shoulder, my arm muscles straining with the exertion of holding her at bay. “Bite me, Mitra.”

  He sipped his latte, standing there immaculate and infuriating in a camel-colored trench coat more appropriate to a night at the theater than a demon raid. A raid it turned out that Rohan had no intention of participating in, deeming it “a training exercise for the newbie.”

  Overhead, a bulb sizzled and popped out, dimming the light and casting almost-romantic shadows over the warped structural beams and grotty walls.

  Rohan had the gall to check his watch.

  “Don’t let me keep you from anything.” I shot lightning bolts at the vral from my eyes and she jerked, her weight almost off me. Hand blasts were so level one. I rolled sideways, but the demon crashed back down on top of me. The two of us tumbled into the shadows.

  “Then finish her,” he said.

  “I’m trying but I don’t think she’s into me that way.”

  Rohan took another sip. “Make her want it.”

  Continued grappling with the demon wasn’t going to get me anywhere other than exhausted and then dead. Fine, mostly dead. Rohan wouldn’t let me be unequivocally taken out.

  I wove an electric net around the vral’s body, temporarily paralyzing her with my magic so I could scramble free. My problem? The only way to permanently stop a demon involved hitting their weak spot. My other problem? There was a different spot for each demon. With vral, it was their left eye. As in the one that bulged jiggling out toward me from her socket, laden with pus. “If I blast her eyeball, demon goo will splooge everywhere.”

  “Always about the hard and messy,” he chastised. “Gentle has its place, too, you know.”

  The vral, who I’d thought was still suffering the effects of the paralysis, lashed her tail around my arm. Surprise. What looked like smooth fur was actually dozens of tiny barbs. I wrenched free, my stomach heaving at the sight of my arm that now looked like raw hamburger. I blasted the demon in the chest, snapping at Rohan, “Have it at. Gently use one of your blades to puncture–Son-of-a-bitch!”

  The vral convulsed under the sharp crackle of my power, locking onto me in a spasming hug, her claws shredding my sweater. Eight bleeding gashes were not my idea of body adornment.

  The air stank of sizzling fur, which was still a step up from the stale B.O. and garbage juice that had seeped into the walls of this squatter’s paradise.

  “Stop acting from the flight part of your brain and go to the fight,” Rohan said.

  Thrashing on the floor, I squeezed my eyes shut against the blood and sweat dripping into them. The vral’s claws remained burrowed into my back. “What do you think I’m doing?”

  “Napping? Baruch trained you better than this.”

  Yeah, for three whole weeks. Muttering an anatomically impossible suggestion Rohan’s way, I pulled out a self-defense move that Baruch had drilled into me. Before the demon’s tremors could subside, I wrapped my right leg around her left foreleg to trap it, curling my right arm over the same side of her body in a tight overhook. My fingers dug deeper into her wiry, scorched fur, hitting something squishy that was matted into her side.

  Please don’t let that be leftover homeless person from her earlier meal.

  I planted my left foot firmly on the floor, bridging up, my hips exploding into the air. The combination of that momentum, along with the pull/push dual action of my arms as I chopped my left hand into the demon allowed me to swing on top of her.

  “That’s a start,” Rohan said.

  Snarling, the vral bucked me off like a seasoned rodeo bull. I flew onto my ass, then scrambled to my feet, panting, my right foot buckling as I stumbled backwards over a piece of fallen ceiling tile.

  Rohan tsked me. “We’re Fallen Angels, not Falling Angels. Try to stay on your feet.” In a display of rampant egotism, my fellow all-male hunters had dubbed themselves Fallen Angels. I’d graciously been extended the label.

  “You’re hilarious.”

  “I am rather,” he replied in a put-on posh British accent that intoxicated me like a shot of liquid sex. He gestured to the trash-strewn floor. “Be aware of your surroundings,” he directed, in his normal voice that was all smoky baritone and velvet Californian curls. “Garbage can be your downfall.”

  I flung a damp lock of curly dark brown hair out of my face.

  The vral scrambled back onto all fours, shaking out her fur like she was waking from a nap. Then the man-eating little fucker lunged and sank her two rows of teeth into the toes of my boots.

  Steel-toed, but still. These babies were new. Very expensive. Who knew it was such a challenge to find badass boots with reinforced steel, a chunky heel that was far more practical to run in than stilettos, and silver buckles running up the side? It was my consolation gift to myself for having my lovely life of partying, sex, and naps getting shot to hell with the recent discovery that I was the first female Rasha, or demon hunter. I’d been reluctantly inducted into the Brotherhood of David, a dick-swinging secret organization. Yeah, they weren’t thrilled to have their first vag-sporter either.

  The vral’s eyes locked onto mine. She gave a chittered cackle, her teeth cracking deeper into the leather.

  My old tap dance mantra popped into my head. A one, a two, you know what to do. Nothing to it but to do it. I blasted the vral’s eyeball, shielding myself with a ceiling tile against the putrid pus arcing out of her like a Tarantino kill. The splatter guard worked well, with only a few drops of warm liquid hitting my cheek. It tingled but nothing got in my eyes or mouth so score one, Nav
a. Which tipped into score the second as the demon death throe’d down to a single nubbin of fur.

  The faintest scuff of claws on metal was our only clue that another demon was present. It flew off an overhead pipe, claws outstretched and the fur on its back raised. A baby vral, much smaller in size, but still deadly.

  Before I even had time to gasp, Rohan’s hand shot up, one wicked sharp blade extended from his index finger, the movement pulling his coat tight around his astoundingly well-defined shoulders. His magic allowed him to do that party trick with all his fingers, not to mention extend a blade that ran the length of his body like an outline. One time I’d asked him why his clothes didn’t get shredded each time he brought out his knives. Maybe I’d said it a little too dejectedly because he’d stopped instructing me on the proper way to punch a chupacabra in the face and raised an amused eyebrow as he said, “It’s magic.”

  He didn’t look up when he aimed now, didn’t even stop sipping that stupid latte, yet he shish-kabobed the vral right through the neck. Since it wasn’t the sweet spot, it wasn’t a kill strike, but he still stopped the demon in its tracks.

  “Admit it. You’re the devil.” I trained my eyes on the shadowy corner of this dump but didn’t see any other movement.

  “Nice to see I’ve risen in the hierarchy of Hell during our brief acquaintance.” With a snap of his wrist, Rohan flicked the demon over to me.

  Baby vral plopped at my feet with a wet splat, still quivering.

  “Don’t say I never give you anything,” he said.

  “I couldn’t possibly accept. You caught it. You kill it.”

  Rohan waved a hand at me. “I insist.”

  I toed the baby vral. Hmm. I stood behind it, which meant its eyeballs faced Rohan. “I serve at the pleasure of my commanding officer.” Barely hiding my snigger, I nailed its eyeball with a concentrated stream of electricity, killing the demon with a tad too much enthusiastic zeal.

  Her entire body exploded. Pus, guts, and fur flew, dousing our immediate area like the splash zone after Shamu bellyflopping at SeaWorld. Her various bits then winked into oblivion like they were supposed to when a demon was offed, but the damage had been done.