Nava Katz Box Set 2

by Deborah Wilde

  “That’s not exactly a paid position and stop changing the subject. How do you not kill her?” she said to Rohan.

  “With great difficulty,” he ground out.

  “Do you want some clean clothes? I’ve got some sweats you can wear and you could help yourself to some lingerie samples.” She sounded as muted as I felt.

  It was a generous offer, and yesterday I would have jumped at the chance to get my hands on all these pretty, girly bras. Periwinkle and pink, silk and lace, I would have put them on and paraded them for Ro.

  Now, they’d chafe as badly as the still-healing burns on my skin.

  “Thanks, but I’m good.” I clutched the pendant. “You’d have sold that bribe if you hadn’t glanced at the Bullseye. I’m keeping it and you’re not using it.”

  “Really? Can you sense how close Lilith is to breaking free?” Rohan pinned me in his laser focus like he was trying to invoke X-ray vision.

  I shrugged. “It won’t happen today.”

  “Do we have a day? A week? Nava, your throat was rippling like something was trying to strangle you from the inside.”

  I sat down. “Oh.”

  Kane and Ari strolled out of a back room. My brother’s eyes were red as well.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “I never got to meet Dr. Gelman when she was alive and if it hadn’t been for her?” He shook his head.

  Kane stepped closer to my brother and draped an arm around his shoulder.

  “We took her body back to her sister,” Ari said. “EC transport.”

  “When’s the funeral?” Raquel said.

  “Rivka is going to let us know,” Kane said.

  I pressed my index finger against my lips, shoving my grief back inside. Allowed myself three breaths.

  “Talk sense into your sister,” Rohan said. “She’s refusing to let us do the extraction.”

  “Have you asked her why?” Ari said.

  Raquel and Rohan exchanged guilty looks.

  “Thank you.” I stood up briskly. “Mandelbaum and Sienna are going to throw everything they have at us. Help me figure out how I can access Lilith’s magic without waking her, because right now, I can only tap into the wisps she discharges and it’s not enough. Let me be the weapon that tips the scales in our favor. I’ve said from the start that we needed the advantage Lilith’s magic gave us. It’s time for me to stop dancing around the issue and embrace it.”

  Ro’s blades slid out again, but words were beyond him.

  “And if taking on that much dark magic destroys you?” Raquel said.

  “Then I go out in a blaze of glory.”

  Ari started to speak, but Rohan jerked up a hand to cut him off. “Do you hear yourself?”

  “Even with my regular magic I could die. Not like Rasha have long lifespans. I want to make a difference. I want to matter.”

  Ro slammed the side of his fist onto the table. “You matter.”

  “I want to matter to the world.”

  “That’s Lilith’s ego talking, not you,” he said.

  “Maybe mattering is where this path started for her. Maybe she and I aren’t that different. I promise you, I don’t have a death wish. I want to be around for years.” I cut a sideways glance at Rohan. I want to tell you I love you.

  “You have a plan?” Ari asked.

  “My own magic allows me to manipulate brain waves and make people unconscious. With Lilith’s magic amplifying mine, I could do it in one giant wave that would take all of Mandelbaum’s men out simultaneously once we find this compound. Then our Rasha could secure them without any fighting. Without any loss of life.”

  “We can take them,” Kane said.

  “But why should you have to? Why risk even one more person when I can do this without anyone else getting hurt?”

  Why force anyone else to have human death on their conscience? Why force anyone else up against their monster-self? If I could fully embrace Lilith’s magic, I could allow my friends, my family, my love to keep their moral compasses intact. I could embrace the worst to allow them to show off their best.

  “And don’t forget, we’ve got Sienna who can turn anyone of us against each other,” I said. “She’s proven that. I need magic that’s stronger than hers to take her down.”

  Raquel fiddled with the end of her tape measure. “Okay.”

  “Really?”

  “Okay, I’ll talk to the others and see if it’s even possible for you to dip into the box and access the magic without releasing Lilith. Just don’t hold your breath. We discussed a lot of possibilities when Esther first mentioned you to us, and this never arose as one of them. If none of us know how to do it, I don’t know who would.”

  She started crying again, muttered, “fuck” and reached for a tissue.

  I bit down hard on my lip so I wouldn’t do the same, because if I let my anguish over Esther out I wasn’t sure if I could stop. I had to keep it together until Sienna was contained.

  “Is there some kind of test run?” Ari said. “How will we know you’ve solved how to keep Nava safe versus letting her access magic that immediately kills her?”

  I glanced at Rohan, standing rigidly on the far side of the room, refusing to make eye contact. Hopefully, he was taking some much-needed processing time. A cooling off and any second now he’d come back to my side like he’d promised.

  Raquel blotted her eyes. “Accessing the magic is simple. But we won’t know if we’ve found a way to protect you until you actually do it.” Raquel gave a thin smile. “If you don’t drop dead, we’re good.”

  “How is that any better than doing nothing and Lilith waking up and killing her in a couple weeks?” Kane demanded.

  “It’s my choice,” I said. “I’m willing to risk it. My life versus all of humanity. Isn’t that essentially the Rasha code?”

  Rohan had come up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. “What are you going to do with Sienna?”

  He had my back and was respecting my choices. I allowed myself a spurt of hope at how far we’d come.

  “There’s got to be something that can imprison her,” I said.

  Kane flicked a finger against the pendant. “Could you use the Bullseye to put Sienna in the vessel?”

  Raquel tossed her tissues in a small trashcan. “It would kill her. Lilith is, well, we don’t know what she is anymore, but she can’t be alive in the normal human sense and we can contain her. Sienna is still very much human.”

  I nodded. “No killing Sienna. Plus, if I become a danger or this somehow all goes sideways, then you need to use the Bullseye. Oh. What happens if Lilith wakes up and breaks free of the box before we extract her?”

  “She’ll still kill you,” Raquel said. “Your only chance to stop Sienna and make it out alive is to tap into Lilith’s magic in a way that doesn’t kill you when you overpower Sienna, find something to imprison her in, and then use the Bullseye to extract Lilith from you before she breaks out of her magic prison. Any of those things don’t happen in the correct order, either Sienna or Lilith will eviscerate you.”

  “When we win, you’ll let us use the Bullseye on you immediately afterward, right?” Rohan said.

  “Fifty percent chance I lose my magic, Snowflake.”

  Raquel cleared her throat. “Not anymore. You’ve been tying your magic to Lilith’s. We pull her out, you lose your magic for sure. No ifs, ands, or buts.”

  My hand tightened on the pendant.

  “But you live,” Rohan said. “Promise me. You get through the battle and you allow the extraction.”

  Without any magic, I’d be an ordinary girl. Rohan wouldn’t be an ordinary guy. Would we still be able to have a happily-ever-after or would I resent him for his magic?

  “I promise,” I swung my gaze between them all. “Provided you find a way for me to get Lilith’s magic that also doesn’t kill me in the process.”

  Raquel sent off a text. “I’ve put the others onto it.”

  “You still need so
mething to contain Sienna once you take her down.” Kane looked at Ari. “Remember the night we broke into the Brotherhood library in New York?”

  “Ari Katz, you scoundrel,” I chided.

  “I was drunk,” he said.

  “Even better.” I wagged a finger at him. “Share, so I can repeat your failings as an upstanding young man at our next family dinner.” The wobble in my voice betrayed my attempt at pretending all was normal.

  My brother, bless him, didn’t show any pity or sympathy. He knew it would undo me.

  “You’re thinking of the Tomb of Endless Night,” Ari said.

  Kane fired a finger gun at him. “Got it in one.”

  “That sounds promising,” I said.

  Raquel sniffed. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “You don’t know everything? Le gasp.” Kane smirked at her.

  “It’s a cage that nulls all magic,” Ari said. “Even dark magic.”

  I started laughing. “Esther.”

  The dam broke. Tears were pouring down my face and I couldn’t catch my breath, but whether from the manic laughter or the sobbing was anyone’s guess.

  “Babyslay?” Kane inched closer. “You cracking up?”

  I gasped for air. “Esther kept threatening to throw me in a Faraday cage that would do exactly that.”

  “This isn’t the same thing,” Ari said. “And it’s a sarcophagus, not a cage. The Tomb is coated in dark magic. Lilith created it centuries ago.”

  “Built to take out the competition?” I grabbed a tissue and dabbed at my eyes, while Rohan rubbed my back.

  Kane shrugged. “Who knows? But the demons got hold of it about seventy years ago.”

  “Which means there is only one demon who would have deigned to get it for you. Baskerville.” Raquel stared pointedly at Rohan, who glared back at her.

  “Fuck off,” he said. “We didn’t know.”

  “Damn,” I said, my voice still watery. “Seems I was a bit too clever tying up that loose end. You’ve got to have other demon leads. Try them. I’ll try my contacts as well. The Tomb sounds like our best and only way to contain Sienna.”

  “What a bunch of dismal options. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t,” Kane said.

  Or just damned.

  Ari smacked him.

  “Like we weren’t all thinking it,” Kane said.

  He wasn’t wrong.

  There was something about being immersed in water, be it stretched out in a bathtub or floating in the ocean, that was intensely calming. The fact that this comfort zone had an infinity edge and an epic view of the city didn’t hurt. Too bad I could barely see it with my swollen, damp eyes.

  I drifted across Dev and Maya’s pool on my inflatable lounger, the early evening shadows lengthening. The waterfall in the connecting hot tub had been turned down to a mere trickle.

  “Is it my fault Esther’s dead?” I shook the Magic 8 ball I’d taken from the bungalow. “Reply hazy. Try again.”

  Ari jumped in, splashing me.

  I paddled backward.

  “Quit asking it that question,” Ari said.

  “Fine. Are more people going to die?” I shook the ball. “Signs point to yes.”

  Ari swiped the ball away.

  “Ask it if I need to moisturize.” Kane floated past on an air mattress, wearing mirrored shades despite the sun almost having sunk below the horizon. He also wore a hideous cheetah-print speedo that left nothing to the imagination.

  Generally, I was all for realities as impressive as his, but this was the dude I wanted for my brother, so nope.

  Ari shook the ball. “Without a doubt.” Kane whipped the glasses off to glare at Ari, who shrugged. “I’m just the messenger.”

  My brother tossed the ball into the water, where it bobbed, floating.

  I turned my lounger around to face the view once more. “I’m tired.”

  “Take a nap.” Kane slid gingerly into the water.

  Ari snagged Kane’s mattress and hefted himself on to it, laying on his stomach. “She meant existentially, idiot.”

  Kane pushed him halfway across the pool. “Save me from angsty twins. What will be will be, Katzes. There’s no point worrying about it.”

  I hooked my foot onto the pool deck to keep me anchored in place. “I’d been so certain I had this all under control. That I could outwit and outplay everyone.”

  “That only works on game shows,” Ari said.

  The ball floated by. I grabbed it and shook it. “Ask again later.” I tossed it back in the water. “Stupid ball.”

  “Divination tools ain’t what they used to be,” Kane said.

  “Ask what again later?” Ari asked.

  “The prophecy. I keep circling around to whether Ro and I being together has sped up the timeline. Not like I’d have stayed away from him even if it had, but there’s the first part of it. Blood to bind the might.”

  “The blood used to bind demons,” Ari said.

  “What if it has another meaning?” I pulled the pendant back and forth on its chain. “Blood’s been spilled. Is the Brotherhood in a stronger position because they killed Esther? She was a powerful player and they took her out. And what about Sienna? She spilled blood and hurt the Brotherhood. Did that make her stronger? What about when she finds out about Esther?”

  “You’re assuming she cared about her,” Kane said.

  “She loved her. Just like I did.” My heart ached but I’d cried myself dry.

  Kane headed for the stairs. “It’s war, babyslay. There are going to be casualties and shit is going to get dark. Your only real choice is how you want to live your life in the face of that.”

  “Yeah?” Ari said. “How do you want to live yours, Kane?”

  Kane bowed his head, his shoulders rising and falling on a deep breath. Then he slammed a sheet of water halfway across the pool and marched up the stairs, his back ramrod straight as he got out.

  Ari watched him leave. “Guess I got my answer.”

  “Ace.”

  “Don’t.” He jumped onto the stairs and left.

  I glanced over at my bungalow, lit from within with a warm, candlelit glow. What did I want? I wanted to reaffirm life and prove that the darkness didn’t get to win.

  25

  I stepped inside and was hit with the mouth-watering aromas of sizzling garlic and wine.

  Ro stood at the stove, his jaw all stubbled and his damp hair tousled, dropping fat white prawns into a pan while Ella Fitzgerald sang about being bewitched, bothered, and bewildered on the stereo. A cut-up crusty baguette was arrayed on a wooden cutting board on the table next to a big colorful salad. “Wine’s chilling in the fridge.”

  My breath caught at the cozy picture of domesticity. This. The world was exploding around us but tonight we could have this bubble.

  We could have us. And then I’d tell him I loved him.

  I hugged him from behind. “You’re the best.”

  “I am. But that’s old news.”

  “Are we going to talk about earlier?”

  He shook his head. “I respect your decision. Hell, I understand your decision. But I can’t talk about it. Not tonight, okay?” He squeezed some lemon onto the prawns. “Shower off and come get comfortable.”

  I ran a hand down his abs and under his shirt. “What if I’d rather eat and then take a bath with my boyfriend?”

  I teased him for a good minute before he relaxed and turned to me with a grin that was so sinful, I surreptitiously checked my red polka dot bikini bottoms to ensure they hadn’t spontaneously combusted. They were still there but what little dryness they’d achieved had just suffered a serious setback.

  He captured my lips with the sweetest tease of a kiss.

  Seriously. It lasted all of two seconds. I stood there with my mouth puckered but he’d already turned back to the stove. I poked him in the back and he chuckled.

  “Pour us both a glass and let me finish, or we won’t eat.”

  “I can wait.�
�

  “You’ll need the stamina.”

  I shivered at the promise in his voice. “Dinner first it is.”

  I still planned to bathe with him later, so I just threw a wrap over my bikini.

  Dinner was lighthearted, filled with delicious seafood, a Moscato that went down like fruit punch, and a confessional about words we’d misunderstood as kids.

  I wiped a dollop of salad dressing off my upper lip. “My turn. When I was about seven, Ari and I were playing Monopoly and he was being a total brat.”

  Ro swiped a piece of bread through the buttery wine sauce from the prawns. “He was winning.”

  “Exactly. So, to insult him and prove I was smarter than my science nerd brother, I decided to call him an organism. Except I couldn’t remember which was the single-celled life form and which was the sex thing and, well, orgasm it was.”

  “He must have had a field day with that one.”

  “He knew I meant organism but he wasn’t too sure what an orgasm was either, so being the curious child he was, he had to find out.”

  Rohan shook his head, his expression half-amused, half-fearful.

  “We were staying with my bubbe that summer who didn’t have internet. Imagine this perfectly coiffed woman nervously twisting her diamond ring while her twin grandchildren peppered her with questions about orgasms. I think she tried to answer the first one, then she gave us ten bucks and told us to go buy candy.”

  “Why do I sense an extortion scam?”

  “Because you know me. To be fair, Ari was just as bad. We must have raked in a couple hundred bucks that summer. Just stayed high on Gummi Bears and Chupa Chups. Mom had to detox us when we got home.” I speared a piece of avocado. “That was also the year Ari broke his ankle rollerblading off a homemade ramp and I ended up with a really bad case of road rash trying to ride my bike on one wheel.” I picked out the lone candied pecan left in the salad bowl and tossed it in my mouth. “There may have been a correlation.”

  “At least your story had a happy ending.” Rohan covered his eyes with his hand. “I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this.”

  I pried his hand away. “But you are.”