The Unlikeable Demon Hunter: Need (Nava Katz Book 3)

by Deborah Wilde

  “Piss off, Kane,” I snapped, not taking my focus off Audrey.

  Audrey twined her leg around my ankle. “What she said.”

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Ari asked.

  I slammed the graffiti-covered cubicle door shut with my ass and crushed my lips to Audrey’s, sucking on her tongue, the taste of cinnamon driving me wild.

  Ari pounded on the stall door.

  “Boyfriend?” Audrey asked, pulling out of the action.

  I gagged. “Annoying brother.”

  “Who will get more annoying if you don’t stop what you’re doing,” he said from the other side of the stall.

  “That’s rather homophobic of you, Ari,” Kane said. “And hypocritical given what you were up to ten minutes ago. Huh. Maybe hypocritical should have gone first?”

  “Your dad forgot to give him ‘the talk,’” Audrey murmured, her lips trailing up my throat.

  I snickered, then shivered as she sucked a sensitive spot under my ear.

  Another pound on the stall door.

  Growling, I flung it open. “What?!”

  Ari braced his hand on the door so I couldn’t slam it again. “You don’t kiss.”

  “I beg to differ,” Audrey purred. Oh, I liked her.

  “It’s your golden rule,” Ari said.

  “I never met a rule I couldn’t break.” I shooed him off.

  He went nowhere.

  Kane splayed a hand on the counter, gave a horrified look at whatever he’d touched, and washed his hands. “So she wants to open her legs and not her heart. So what?”

  “Aren’t you a charmer?” Audrey drawled.

  “Your place?” I asked Audrey. She nodded and I grabbed her hand, ducking past the assholes in our path, and leading her out of the bathroom.

  Kane strolled alongside Audrey. “It’s not judgment.” He shot a pointed look at Ari keeping pace with me. Stupid Rasha wouldn’t recognize a brush off if it bit them in the ass. “I’m all for living life on one’s own terms.”

  “I know what happened with you and Ro,” Ari said.

  I cut through a knot of women crowding the bar, hoping to ditch him in the fray.

  “Ro?” Audrey said. “Is that your boyfriend?”

  “Ha! No.”

  “He kissed you,” Ari said, rejoining us on the other side of the people cluster. “Then took off. That’s why you’ve been throwing yourself into your work this past month.”

  A server backed into our path.

  Audrey ducked under his drink-laden tray. “Am I being used to punish some guy?”

  “No.” At least, I didn’t think so. “This is none of your business,” I informed Ari. I stopped at our table and grabbed my trench coat.

  “I have to live and work with both of you,” he said. “I don’t want to fucking deal with your collateral damage. Not when I finally got here.”

  I, of all people, understood why being Rasha without further complication mattered so much to him. But it wasn’t fair to assume that, once again, I’d be the roadblock. “There’s nothing to deal with.”

  Ari shifted to block me.

  Kane mimed hitting a bell. “Ding. Corners.” He manhandled a glowering Ari and me onto opposite sides of the table. Audrey came too, since I still had hold of her hand.

  A couple at the next table turned our way as if waiting to be entertained by our drama.

  “Do this,” Kane wagged a finger between me and Audrey, “all you want, babyslay, but after the talk which must be had.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if I were a guy,” I said. Audrey snickered, helping me put on my coat. Chivalry, always a turn-on. “And since Rohan is partying halfway across the world, consider the talk unnecessary.”

  Audrey stepped back. “Wait. Rohan, as in Mitra? As in lead singer of the global chart-topping emo superband Fugue State Five?” she squealed. We all stared at her and she shrugged. “I may have had three or four of their albums. That’s why you couldn’t stop ogling him on TV?”

  “No. I mean, yes, but not like–”

  “You want an introduction?” Ari asked Audrey.

  I stepped on my brother’s foot.

  Kane slapped his hand over his mouth several seconds too late to cover the laugh that burst out of him.

  “I’m more a Janelle Monáe girl now.” Audrey’s hand slipped from my grasp. She pulled the clip from her disheveled chignon, her hair dropping like a curtain to her shoulders and hiding the sexy curve of her throat. “We could have had fun but–”

  I reached for her. “No past tense. Present tense.”

  She shook her head, keeping her hands out of reach. “Too much drama for me. Hope things work out for you.”

  “Audrey, please. At least give me your number.”

  She waggled a wave at me over her shoulder and was swallowed up by the crowd.

  I whirled around to face Ari. “Happy?”

  “Just sort your shit out.” On that note, Ari left.

  I lunged for him, Kane catching me around the waist as I batted at the air between me and my brother’s retreating back. “Can you believe him?”

  “He’s scared and lashing out,” Kane said, clapping a hand over my mouth when I opened it to protest. “Think of what he’s been through.”

  I yanked his hand off. “Like I don’t know? I was the one who did everything to get him inducted again.”

  He dropped down into a chair, waving our empty pitcher at a passing server. “Via witchcraft. Not the regular Brotherhood ceremony. Sit. You’re giving me a crick.”

  I pulled off my coat and sat down. “He’s being ridiculous.”

  “His entire life he’d been told he was a chosen one. Then he wasn’t. You were. None of the regular rituals worked on him and the one thing that did make him Rasha was some witchy ceremony. Half of him is convinced it’s temporary and the other half is terrified that even if it isn’t, the Brotherhood will find out and take the magic away.” Kane fixed a strand of his black spiky hair. “He doesn’t want anything that might draw attention or reflect badly on him. As your twin, that includes you.”

  “Like you guys had some big heart to heart?”

  “I don’t do those.” Kane patted his cheeks. “Excess emotion causes age spots.” He beamed at the waitress who had returned with a sloshing pitcher and two clean glasses. “You do get that I’ve known Ari most of his life, right?”

  “Uh, well, no.”

  Kane poured me a drink. “We grew up here. Were initiates together. Yeah, I’m five years older so mostly Ari was an annoyance underfoot, but for a lot of the time, me and him were the sole non-Rasha around.”

  “I hadn’t thought about it like that.” I accepted the proffered drink.

  “No kidding. Ari was a perfectionist before all this happened. Now?” He whistled.

  “Not fair. I want to be mad at him.”

  “Cheer up. If he goes on for too long like this, I’ll help you kick his ass.”

  The rest of the evening was a bust, though our rousing duet of “Enough is Enough” on the cab ride back lifted my spirits. I made a fine Babs and Kane’s Donna Summer smacked of sass.

  Once back at Demon Club, a.k.a. the Brotherhood-owned mansion that served as the Vancouver chapter, I took a bag of BBQ chips into Kane’s room.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Kane glanced up from his computer, its two monitor set-up casting an eerie glow over him.

  “Cutting my sexual frustration with a salt overdose.”

  Kane arched an eyebrow. “Okay, tactless. Care to rephrase?”

  “Sorry,” I said sheepishly.

  He snorted. “Get crumbs in here and die.”

  “Whatcha doing?” I peered over his shoulder.

  “Software patch to Orwell. Been having problems with it crashing.”

  “Who’s Orwell?”

  “What. Not who. Brotherhood in-house intelligence.”

  I laughed. “Do they know you call it that?”

  He pushed me back a c
ouple of steps. “They don’t not know.”

  Hunters underwent a three-part process to become Rasha, starting with the Brotherhood tracking all male Rasha descendants, designating these babies “potentials.” A rabbi performed a special ceremony on them when they were less than a week old and if that determined they carried the Rasha gene, the boys were elevated to initiate status.

  Cue the next twenty years of studying all aspects of demon hunting, from demons types to fighting and ward building. At age twenty, decided upon because that’s how long it took to complete training, have stopped growing, and be in the prime of health to accept the magic, the final induction ceremony occurred.

  For some, hunting demons was all they stuck with, but others continued with school or specialized training, using that expertise in service of the Brotherhood. Ridding the world of evil spawn required a huge infrastructure. I’d recently learned much to my absolute shock, that another Rasha, Drio Ricci, had a degree in psychology. Kane had one in computer science, which he put to use developing and refining surveillance software. In fact, he spent more time doing that than actual hunting these days, which now made a lot more sense. He also did custom jobs for clients at David Security International, the Brotherhood’s public persona.

  “Question.” I licked BBQ seasoning off my fingers. “Why live here at Demon Club? Wouldn’t you rather have your own place?” Living and working together intensified all the relationship drama–romantic, sexual, or other–but I certainly hadn’t been given a choice of housing.

  I got comfy on his bed, careful to eat over the bag.

  “I save a bundle in rent. But even better, I have a built-in reason to never bring anyone home.” Kane swore under his breath and typed in a short series of commands. “Don’t reroute, you bastard.”

  “What do you tell them?” My phone vibrated with a series of Twitter alerts for #RohanMitra. Huh. I had a blurry memory of setting that up sometime during pitcher number three. I flipped the screen face down on the bed.

  Kane double-clicked the mouse pad and quiet acid jazz flowed out of the speakers in the corner of the room. “I drop the DSI name, invoke vague-yet-sensitive security issues that preclude me from bringing them to my place, and steer us back to theirs. Boys eat that James Bond shit up.”

  “That’s cold. Maybe I want to invite people over and saying I live at DSI is weird.” If I ever decided that anyone other than my bestie Leonie Hendricks was worth socializing with.

  My stupid phone kept vibrating so I opened the damn Twitter stream to shut it up.

  Rohan was trending. I crammed a handful of chips into my mouth.

  “It’s practical. Don’t have friends who aren’t Rasha.” Kane watched the monitor a moment longer before he hummed in satisfaction, spun his chair away, and pulled his shirt off.

  “You can’t be serious. I need friends who aren’t just men. Or hunters.” I did a double take at one of the many Tweeted propositions for Rohan from his diehard fans, the Ro-mantics. “Jeez, lady, his dick isn’t magic.”

  “That’s not what I’ve heard.” Kane rolled his chair over to his dresser, opened a middle drawer, and pulled out a pair of manicure scissors. “Free advice. Keep the Muggle world at arms’ length and you don’t have to cut them off when the lies get too hard to keep track of.”

  I scrolled through photos of the Child’s Play party. Someone had had a good time. I wadded up the empty bag of chips and hurled it at the trash.

  Kane tensed, but as I made the shot, didn’t comment. He stuck the scissors point up into one of his nipple rings and opened the blades. The bead that had been holding the ring closed popped off.

  I winced. “That’s how you deal? Cut the Muggles off when it gets too messy?”

  “That would be cold. I don’t discriminate between Muggle and wizard. I’m equal opportunity cut ’em off.” He winked.

  I navigated over to one of the myriad of Fugue State Five fan boards. The first several threads were devoted to speculation on what Rohan was doing. And who he was doing it with.

  “While I applaud the sentiment, the sheer incestuousness of an all-Rasha environment is stifling. Twenty-four/seven Rasha is the messy part.” I said.

  Kane applied a drop of Astroglide to each side of the nipple piercing before rotating the ring, removing it. “Sucks to be you.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him, knowing he was teasing. “Don’t distress me, Kane. You wouldn’t want Ari learning that you’re making his twin unhappy.”

  He brightened, unscrewed a new bead from the end of a short straight barbell, and slipped the body jewelry through his piercing. “Blackmail? Oooh, I love this game. Let’s see who can disturb Ari more next time we see him, shall we?”

  “Let’s shall.”

  Kane secured the barbell in place. “How about this for sheer trauma value?” He broke into a series of high-pitched moans, waggling his eyebrows at me. Never letting me live down the fact that his bedroom was over Rohan’s and he’d heard us. Many times.

  My blush-avoidance failure made me cranky, not the thirty-seven comments on the fan boards with zero speculation on my inclusion in Rohan’s life. “You sound like a cow giving birth. My sex noises are sexy.”

  I tossed the phone on the bed.

  “No sex noises are sexy. Except for mine. But I’m the exception that proves all rules.” He switched out his other nipple ring, beginning the process all over again.

  “You’re lucky I love you.”

  “My blessing and my curse. Now to convince the other twin.”

  My eyes bugged out. “You want Ari to love you?!”

  “As if.” Nipple rings switched out for new jewelry, Kane tugged on each barbell.

  “You looooove him. You want to marry him,” I sang.

  “How adorable. No, I want to bend him over a sofa.” He shot me a look of pure exasperation. “What is it with Katz twins thinking my intentions are honorable?”

  “Is that what turned Ari off you before?” My brother was infuriatingly tight-lipped about his personal life. I had to share enough for the both of us.

  “You assume he’s turned off.”

  “Whatever.” My eyes darted back to my screen, compelled to reach for the vibrating phone once more. Fools. Taylor Swift was not Rohan’s type.

  I smirked at the next few ridiculous pairings, then froze. @MainMitraMistress had posted a grainy photo of Rohan and his first love Dr. Lily Prasad breakfasting together. I recognized the restaurant as part of the hotel we’d all stayed in back in Prague last month. The Ro-mantic poster wondered if Rohan had reunited with lightning girl.

  Kane pulled the phone out of my hand. “Quit torturing yourself.”

  I sank back against his mattress. “Help me, Obi Wan.”

  Kane lay down beside me, folding his arm under his head. “You’re looking at this all wrong. Jettisoning flotsam is not a sacrifice.”

  I lay my head on his shoulder. “What about when you end up jettisoning someone who isn’t flotsam?”

  “If they cross a line and they should have known better?” The song ended, leaving Kane’s next words quiet musings in the silence. “Tell yourself that’s not a sacrifice either.”

  “Like that’s so easy.”

  “It’s a rough business, babyslay. I’m not going to say it won’t hurt, but you have to look out for yourself. At the end of the day, no one else will.” His expression was distant.

  The two of us hung out in comfortable silence listening to music, until too tired to move, I passed out still-clothed on his bed. I’d planned to sleep late Thursday, though I’d swear I’d only had the shortest of naps when someone shook me awake, with my gummy eyes, coated mouth, and all.

  “Nava,” said a breathy voice.

  I squinted up at my assailant to find our resident admin Ms. Clara standing over me. She was like a mini ray of sunshine with her blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and golden skin.

  “Later.” I jammed a pillow on top of my head.

  “Get up,” she sna
pped in the commanding tone that made her one of Vancouver’s most in-demand dominatrixes on her time off.

  Weighing the risks to my personal safety, I decided sleep overrode finding myself on the wrong end of her famous whip and flopped over to face the wall.

  She grabbed my arm, hauling me to my feet with surprising strength given her petite frame. “Rabbi Mandelbaum is here.”

  I blinked. The head of the Brotherhood and man who wanted me dead lived in Jerusalem. “Huh?”

  “Nava Katz,” a Russian-accented voice said. A man in his mid-forties wearing a kippah, with peyot sidelocks and a curled lip stopped just inside Kane’s door. “We meet at last.”

  It was one thing to mock Rabbi Mandelbaum with a couple of continents between us but there was no ignoring the way the air itself seemed to charge with the power he embodied.

  I swallowed, pushing my rat’s nest of curls out of my face. Shit.

  4

  Rabbi Mandelbutt ordered me to meet him in the conference room once I’d made myself presentable. I swear he used air quotes on that word. Small mercies that Kane hadn’t still been asleep in the bed. The rabbi would have ordered a giant scarlet “A” to be sewn on all my clothing.

  He gave Kane a hearty handshake and headed downstairs.

  I hopped into the hallway, tugging off a sock, shower bound. “Holy shit, are you okay?”

  Kane looked down at his sedate green sweater and black pants. “I spy with my little eye something that looks like perfection. To what do you refer?”

  “You’re dressed like a normal human being.” I jumped onto my other foot, ripped off my sock, and gasped. “You knew Mandelbaum was coming and didn’t tell me.”

  “I found out yesterday and there was no point. You’d have stressed all day and I don’t like drama.” His lips quirked.

  I chucked my free sock at him. “You can’t even say that with a straight face.”

  “Obviously.” Kane waved his hand around his head. “As no part of me may be denigrated as such.” He pushed me into my bedroom. “Hurry up. You don’t want to make a bad impression.” He pursed his lips. “Worse impression.”

  Kane didn’t know the half of it.