The gogota’s single glassy eye tracked my progress and his blood red lips seemed to be mouthing something over and over again.
Having the entire modified demon and not just its spine might go a long way toward determining once and for all whether the Brotherhood was involved. This demon was my one lead to expose Mandelbaum, heal the rift between Ari and myself, and show up all the hypocrisy within the Brotherhood–starting with the second-class status of yours truly.
“We good here? The gogota for the collar?”
Baskerville pursed his lips. “Very well.”
I left the gogota locked in the office, counting on it not having the fine motor skills with those sausage fingers to turn the tiny tab in the knob and unlock the door.
“Pleasure doing business with you.” This was the point where I should have killed Baskerville since the only good demon was a dead one, Leo excepted, but his resourcefulness might prove useful another time. “Lucky you, you get to live.”
Life became a little bit more gray with each passing day.
I escorted him out the shattered sliding door, glass crunching underfoot. The couches were intact, however.
The back gate banged open and Rohan stormed in, his face and arms covered in scratches. Twigs and bits of frothy leaves were stuck in his hair. As soon as he saw the demon, he broke into a run, blades out.
“And that’s my cue.” Baskerville disappeared.
Rohan swiped at the empty air, swore, and then glared at me. “You let him get away?”
“His future value outweighed killing him.”
“Based on your decades of experience.”
“Based on my gut. I’m not completely useless at this either. Besides, if you’re jonsing that hard for a demon, I’ve got another one.”
“Of course you do.” He raked his fingers through his hair, dislodging shrubbery.
I snickered. “Where did he teleport you?”
Rohan’s gaze flicked to the neighbor’s hedges peeking up above the fence. He rubbed the side of his head. “The old lady that lives there is really mean. She clocked me for disturbing her stupid Viburnums. Don’t laugh,” he said, jabbing a finger at me, then chuckled, bowing his head so I could pluck the remaining foliage off him.
“Come on.” I took his arm. “You’ll want to see this.”
Unlocking the office door was as easy as one, two, three, blast. The door crashed open into the wall. I grimaced. That was going to leave a dent. Though it was still hanging on its hinges so my master control had reached new heights.
The gogota rushed Rohan, grabbing him around the neck with his long, sticky fingers.
Rohan’s iron blades shot out of his body.
“Don’t kill it!” I shoved Rohan off-balance.
“Why not?” Rohan failed to disengage from the demon.
“Because having all of the demon to examine could give us a total picture of what was done to it and how.” My eyes watered from the demon’s stench. Grunting, I heaved on the window clasp, wrenching it open and gulping down fresh air.
Rohan sliced off the gogota’s arm. It came off the demon but remained stuck around Rohan’s throat like the ultimate goth accessory.
The gogota started freaking out, yelling “Gel. Man. Gel. Man.” and running in circles, his head swiveling around looking for his target.
“He’s still trying to kill her,” I said. Once fixated on a task, a gogota would try to complete it until he was dead, and given that this one was probably bound by magic to carry it out, the impulse must have been twice as strong.
“Gel. Man. Gel. Man.” The gogota’s cries increased.
The front door opened. Oh shit. Gelman’s sister was back. If she was a witch like Gelman, this B&E was not what I wanted my first impression to be.
There was a shriek of rage. That would be the destroyed sliding door.
“We need to get out of here,” I hissed.
Rohan plowed into the gogota with his shoulder like a linebacker, knocking him back a half-dozen feet. Of course, thanks to the glue-like slime the demon secreted, Rohan was once more stuck to the damn thing, but that did help him steer the gogota toward the window which was our only way out.
Footsteps thudded closer. “I’m calling the cops.”
I slammed the office door, blasting the heavy filing cabinet across the room to block it.
Rohan punched the gogota in the face. It didn’t shut the demon up.
Gelman’s sister banged on the door. “Open up.”
We attempted to wrestle the demon out the ground floor window. Get a five-foot-eight moving sausage with flailing arms, okay, arm, and try to shove it through a half-open window while your partner is stuck to it. See how far you get.
“Fuck this,” Rohan said, and jerked himself, me, and the demon sideways out the window.
We landed in a pillowy heap. Pillowy for me. Less so for Rohan and absolutely not at all for the demon, who’d ended up at the bottom of our dog pile.
We wrestled the demon out the side gate and over to Rohan’s car. He had to cut himself free of the gogota, the two of us stuffing the demon into his trunk with our magic and a tire iron. Rohan bitched about the damage to his precious Shelby until we’d screeched out of the alley when he switched it up to bitching about my driving.
My reminder that his eyes were stuck together with gogota goop and I was the better driver option was scoffed at.
I stuck to five kilometers below the speed limit, my eyes darting to the rearview mirror in time with the thumps emanating from the trunk and jolting the entire car. “The mandated procedure for being pulled over with a decaying irate demon in the trunk would be what?”
Rohan laughed, more pained than in hilarity, prying his sticky eyelashes open. His entire front was coated in a rapidly hardening sticky goo, every little movement going “crack.”
The gogota shrieked. I glanced into the windows of the neighboring cars but no one seemed to notice. Or they just didn’t care. Blessings on human indifference. “I could call Leo. She might know somewhere safe to stash it.”
“No.” Rohan wiped more demon goo off with his sleeve. “We’ll put him in the iron room where we can keep an eye on him.”
“Are you insane? We can’t bring him into the house.” My voice had risen about two-octaves.
Rohan patted my back like I was going to panic. I opened my mouth to snap at him, except my lungs had constricted and my vision had blurred and yup, he was right. I was about to panic. I leaned in to his touch.
“Freaking out?” he said.
“Yes. Jump in, the water’s fine.”
“Just get my baby home in one piece.”
I crafted a taunt about his concern for my well-being, then didn’t bother. He was talking about the car.
“That room is the safest place for the demon,” he said. “Rabbi Abrams doesn’t go in there and the room is soundproofed so no one in the Vault will hear the gogota screaming. Besides,” he ripped a strip of goo off his arm and winced, “maybe the demon will break free and kill us before we get back to Demon Club and we won’t have to worry about sneaking him in.”
I patted his knee. “Your cynicism is catching up to mine. It’s so close it’s passing me a baton.”
“Yeah, you’re a real gold medalist that way.” He rolled down the window and flung the hardened goo out.
Incredibly, we were neither ambushed nor arrested on the drive home. The demon even shut up once I’d crossed the wards onto our property. Demons couldn’t come through on their own, but we could bring them through if we chose. Being on our side of the wards was painful and draining for them.
“I’ll check the ground floor. If it’s clear, we’ll take him in that way.” Rohan jogged inside.
I tried to find some music to distract me from the banging inside the trunk, while searching for an explanation in case we got caught. The others would be curious enough about us bringing this demon here without the added complication of why it had a metal spine welded to its b
ack. Oh no, that didn’t scream sketchy.
Five minutes later, Rohan rapped on my window to get my attention. “It’s clear.”
Rohan snicked his blades out while I had a nice ball of electricity at the ready. We opened the trunk, bracing for an attack. The demon lay on his side, snoring.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” I said.
“Don’t knock it. It’ll be easier carrying him like this,” Rohan said. “Grab a side.”
I pitched the demon’s disembodied arm that Rohan had torn off his throat and tossed into the trunk earlier into the rosebushes. The arm sailed over the dense, thorny bush, and landed on the grass. A crow hopped off a branch to take a closer look, cawed, and pecked at it, which was when I decided I didn’t need to see any more.
We lugged the dead weight in through the ground floor door and down the stairs. Rohan had propped open the Vault’s door so we didn’t have to wait for the hand scanner.
“Hurry.” I adjusted my hold on the gogota. “He weighs a ton.” He also sputtered phlegm as he snored and my shirt was getting disgustingly damp.
We carried the demon across the room and dropped him onto the Vault’s blue padded floor. Rohan slapped his hand on the scanner for the small iron room while I shook out my arms, waiting for the light to change from red to green.
The demon was back in our arms, the wall sliding away to allow access into the iron room, when the stupid thing woke up and started thrashing. Limbs flailed: his, mine, Rohan’s. The gogota wound various body parts around each of us. My face was stuck to his armpit, his remaining arm bouncing off the top of my head. Rohan was swearing from somewhere in the vicinity of his shoulder blades.
“Need a hand?” Ari said. “Or is that just the demon?”
“Fuck my life,” I said.
Ari ripped me off the demon.
I swore, bidding adieu to my first few layers of facial epidermis.
Rohan cut himself free and shoved the demon into the iron room so hard that the gogota hit the far wall. With his head. He slid down onto the floor in slow motion. KO’d.
Rohan hit the scanner again and the iron door clicked shut, the wall sliding back into place to conceal him.
Panting, I braced my hands on my thighs. “Nothing to see. Run along.”
“Why’d you bring a modified gogota demon here, Nee?”
“I asked it ‘your place or mine?’” I spread my hands wide.
Ari glared at me.
“Since we’re asking questions,” Rohan said, “why did the ward react to your blood and not mine?”
“What ward?” Ari asked.
Rohan oh-so-helpfully filled him in. Two pairs of eyes lasered me, waiting for my answer.
Being resigned to the truth didn’t make sharing any easier. “Okay, so…” I scratched my neck. “I know who the Rasha blood came from to make that ward.”
“Who?” they asked in unison, their expressions grim.
I scrunched up my face. “Me.”
I didn’t expect that news to be greeted with cupcakes and a parade but it wasn’t as if I’d deliberately handed my blood over, so my brother’s many variations on “How could you be so stupid?” was not, in my opinion, deserved.
“It was a mistake,” I said for the umpteenth time, Rohan and I following Ari into his room. Near as I could figure, Dr. Gelman had used blood that she’d gotten off me in Prague when I was injured to set the ward on her sister’s house. That was one way to create a Rasha ward. Let them bleed on your linens in the name of hospitality, add magic and voilà. “How was I to know she could extract my blood from a washcloth and save it for use at a later date?”
“Why do you think we scour shit if our blood is spilled?” Ari sniffed a T-shirt, pitching it into his hamper in the corner. “You can’t leave any trace of your blood.”
“I understand that now, but at the time, I was coming off almost dying by dragon and preoccupied with whether or not she could help get your stupid ass inducted.”
Rohan smirked, but Ari was still mad at me. “You bitch about the fact that you didn’t have your whole life to train and study like the rest of us,” he said, “but that never seems to stop you from doing whatever you want instead of remembering that you know squat.”
“Give her a break,” Rohan said.
“Am I the only one who sees sense around here?” Ari jabbed a finger at me. “You’ve been stumbling around above your pay grade from day one and you can’t see how badly this is all going to blow up. Christ, it already has. You’ve brought that demon here.”
“What do you want me to say? I fucked up and should have taken it somewhere else?”
“You didn’t fuck up, Nee. You are fucked up. The past few years you’ve been this tornado of bad decisions. It’s been exhausting to live with and I figured that being Rasha, being part of something bigger might rein you in, but it’s done the opposite. You’re more hell-bent than ever on just doing things however you want.” He shook his head, trying to shove me out his door. “Forget it.”
I grabbed onto the doorframe, throwing my weight against him. If I contaminated him with demon phlegm, all the better. “Is this where I’m supposed to apologize for wanting to live life on my terms?”
“This is where you leave shit alone. Hunt demons. Save humanity. Stay away from witches and for fuck’s sake, stop pissing off the Brotherhood.” Ari released me so suddenly that I stumbled. He pushed past me and stomped down the stairs.
I jogged after him. “No. They don’t get to decide my worth and they absolutely don’t get to hurt innocent people, pulling this ‘end justifies the means’ shit.”
We wrestled for control of the library door that he tried to shut in my face.
“But you do?” he said. “You’re doing the exact same thing.”
“I’m not modifying demons.” I balled my hands into fists.
“Don’t be dense.” The two of us were nose-to-nose by this point, bristling at each other.
“Enough.” Rohan stepped in between us and pushed Ari away from me. “Back off.”
“Says the guy who lets her do whatever she wants. Newsflash, Ro, fucking my sister doesn’t mean you know what’s best for her and it sure as hell doesn’t give you any say in this conversation.”
“Excuse me?” A dangerous smile lurked at the corner of Rohan’s mouth.
Ari took a step back, scrubbing a hand over his face. Had I not seen the sheepish flash as he flicked his eyes to me, I’d have clobbered my twin for that comment. His maiming was still on the table.
But he’d be injured at my hands, not Rohan’s. I placed my palm on Rohan’s chest because as good a fighter as my brother was, Snowflake would wipe the floor with him. “Everyone take a mindful freaking moment here.”
I wanted to wait until the tension in the room had ratcheted down a notch before I continued but Rohan shot me a sharp glance before it’d gone down even half a degree. “You going to stay and listen to this?”
I bit my lip.
He didn’t even give me a second to decide. “Your life,” he said in a tight voice and left.
“Rohan,” I called after him.
His footsteps faded away. Great.
I shoved my brother. “For someone who kiboshed my make-out session with Audrey because he didn’t want to ‘fucking deal with the collateral damage?’” I saluted Ari. “Well played.”
Storming off was immature and petty, but damn did it feel good.
15
After a quick shirt change, I barged into Rohan’s room. Unlike mine, it was painted a tasteful green with framed photography on the wall courtesy of Ms. Clara. His clothes hung in a color-coded line in his open closet and his toiletries were still neatly arranged on the counter in his small en suite bathroom. No sign of a man packing up to leave.
“Listen,” I said. “I appreciate your concern but you have no idea what it means to be a twin. You can’t get mad at me for my decisions around Ari. Things are tough between us right now and it’s not something ei
ther of us are used to.”
Rohan finished typing on his phone, then slid it into his pocket. “It annoyed me to hear him speak to you that way. But you’re right and I’m sorry. It wasn’t my place to mix in.”
“Thank you. Now let me see the spell books.”
Rohan pointed at the small stack on his dresser. “There are actually very few spells in these books because Rasha don’t have a lot of cause to use them. If witches can do all kinds of spellwork, it’s not something we’re taught. That said, check the blue one on top. I marked the page.”
I flipped open the book. “This is what we need but the list of ingredients has been redacted.”
“I know. We could search the database? See if we find the spell there.”
“The search would be logged. No point sending up a flare saying “Yoo hoo! Over here! Your least favorite Rasha knows what you’re up to.”
There was no way around it, I needed Kane’s assistance. If anyone could comb through the database and not leave a fingerprint, it was him. Except bringing him in to this would mean sharing my beliefs. Trusting him not to turn around and tell the Brotherhood what I was doing. I was safe trusting Rohan, even before he’d had his own doubts, and Ari, no matter how much he disagreed with me, would never compromise my safety. Had this been Drio, I wouldn’t have risked it, but Kane was still an unknown in a lot of ways to me.
I was pretty certain he’d do this if it was for Ari, and while he didn’t actively wish me harm, that was different than going behind his Brotherhood’s back on my behalf.
I stood there, book in hand, weighing the risks. In the end, I could see no other way of finding a spell for detecting magic traces in a timely fashion. Being able to prove Rohan wrong about me not ever bringing in others to help was merely an added bonus. “We need Kane.”
“Asking for help, again? I’m rubbing off on you,” Rohan said.
“Ha. Ha.” Loath as I was to admit it, he was right. I couldn’t do this on my own. I went in search of Kane, my mind in overdrive at the best way to share minimum information and achieve maximum results.
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter: Need (Nava Katz Book 3) Page 17