Nava Katz Box Set 2

by Deborah Wilde

  The marid trained a tender smile on me. “I appreciate desperate times called for you to take over this body, habibi, but I’m here now. I found you. You don’t need to broadcast like this.”

  I froze, my heart thundering against my ribs. Whoa. I’d really entranced him with my confident witch act. This was awkward.

  “Habibi? Lila?” He stroked my cheek. “Lilith, what’s wrong?”

  “I’m not her.” I pushed his hands off me and stumbled back, fighting to get air into my lungs. “I’m not!”

  “It’s alright, there’s no one here but me. You don’t have to keep pretending.” Malik caught my wrist and hauled me toward him. Holding me still, he kissed me.

  Desire swamped me, hot and syrupy, but it wasn’t mine. An echo of something I’d once known. Once craved.

  I broke the kiss and slapped him.

  For a moment, Malik did nothing, just stood there shocked. Then his brow furrowed and he rubbed his cheek, that familiar, endlessly calculating mask back in place. The strange new warmth in his eye was gone, replaced with something more distant and much more sinister.

  I fired up the electricity on my still-raised hand. “Touch me again and I’ll kill you.”

  “I vote for death now,” Rohan said, stepping out of the shadows. “But we can play this your way.”

  3

  Emo was a cute affectation no longer in this man’s repertoire. After being haunted by dark magic, Rohan’s features glinted harsh in the moonlight and his normally gold eyes were tinged with black threads, their depths frozen into fathomless pools. His body was leaner, sharper, and his clothes hung off a frame forged with a ruthless determination to survive. My boyfriend had gone into the flames and emerged a deadly blade.

  Snowflake had left the building.

  He planted himself at my shoulder, having my back as always, but didn’t touch me.

  As much as I yearned to, I didn’t reach out and smooth away the purple circles under his eyes or kiss him until his stony expression cracked and he put his arms around me, burying his face in my hair. I got the impression that one tender gesture would send him fleeing and I’d lose him to the shadows for good.

  Malik watched us with his one eye that assessed everything. He tipped his head at Rohan. “My mistake. I failed to realize that was petal in there.” He spoke in a curiously flat voice, rubbing one wrist that bore more of the same ugly, red scar tissue. “I imagine now would be as good as ever to tell me how you killed Lilith.”

  Rohan shifted his weight, coiled and ready to spring.

  I touched his shoulder. It was supposed to be a quick touch, but I couldn’t bring myself to move my fingers away from the play of warm skin over muscle through the soft cotton of his shirt.

  Ro allowed it for a handful of seconds, staring at the point of contact with a stricken expression, before he wiped it clean in favor of a predatory focus on Malik and stepped away.

  “We were imprisoned in the Tomb of Endless Night.” I pulled the filthy cuffs of my DSI shirt over my hands, balling my fists at the memory of the soul-entrenching darkness. Lilith had been with me, inside me at first, then nothing. The rest of my time in the Tomb, all of my captivity and torture, I hadn’t been able to determine if I was truly alone. Now I knew. She was gone. I was relieved and grateful.

  And guilty.

  “I heard. Quite the tale,” the marid said. He would have sounded light and flippant had it not been for the tiny catch in his voice. “Funny thing. Lila was never one for sacrifices and yet here you are.”

  “Our situation was… complicated.”

  Rohan snorted.

  I shot him a warning glance. Demon or not, Malik had just lost the person he’d loved, while I had just found mine. A little compassion wouldn’t kill me. “Do you want to know?”

  Malik’s shoulders tensed, but he nodded. I forced myself to stay steady in the force of that inhuman stare.

  “This is just what I suspect but—”

  He waved a hand at me to get on with it.

  “We were in the compound. Lilith was trying to get free from me, but couldn’t, and because our magic was so tangled up, she couldn’t become fully corporeal either. When I died…” I glanced at Rohan, but his expression gave nothing away. “She kickstarted my heart and got the Tomb door open a fraction. It must have drained her to bring me back to life under those conditions. Then Rabbi Mandelbaum sealed me in for a good long while and I think that finished her off. Dark magic was all that had been holding her together and now it was nulled. You’re wrong, Malik. She gave me the ultimate sacrifice. Her last words to me were ‘If you’re alive, I stay alive.’ This was her legacy to me.”

  Even in the depths of my hot mess days, my moral compass had been intact. Later, I’d hunted demons and stayed on the right side of the line between good and evil. With Lilith’s death, I’d rubbed that line out. It wasn’t like there were a lot of self-made immortals running around. Lilith definitely hadn’t been good, but she hadn’t been all bad either. And now, whether or not I’d intended it, she was gone.

  Malik covered his face, his shoulders shaking. Shit, I’d broken him.

  Did one hug the unholy spawn they intended to kill at some point? Brotherhood etiquette was murky on so many points.

  He let out deep peals of laughter, wiping a finger under his eye like he’d heard the best joke ever.

  “Something funny?” Rohan asked.

  “Since you asked? Yes.” Malik’s smile held a cruel edge. “I hate to disabuse you of your little fantasy, but Lilith wasn’t giving you a gift. Those words were a curse.”

  I went still.

  “To possess that much magic,” he said, “is to live with a target on your back. Lilith resented that, but she knew it all too well, and now you will, too. Magic-wise, you register as her with no trace of you.”

  “So that’s what you meant when you said I was ‘broadcasting’ as her?”

  “Loud and clear. Yet given what I saw of the fight, you only have a fraction of her power. Good luck, especially since Satan is coming for you.”

  I burst out laughing. “Oh my God, did you actually just say that? If you’re gonna make a threat, put some thought into it. Aren’t you supposed to be some ancient and super scary marid? Where’s your game, dude?”

  Rohan exhaled, face granite. “Satan is real, Nava.”

  I stopped laughing. As disconcerting as this whole Satan situation was, I was more upset about Rohan not calling me Sparky.

  “This was not in that Demons for Dummies book.” I stomped my foot. “I’ve never even met the Prince of Darkness. I’m nowhere close to the Rasha who’s killed the most of his demons. Plus, I’m working really hard to throw a crimp in Mandelbaum’s plans to bind his little fuckers, for which he could show a modicum of gratitude.”

  Malik laughed. Not a light joy, a dark resignation. “And what on earth makes you assume that he cares?”

  Rohan clapped him on the shoulder, black magic sparking randomly off Ro’s skin with the touch. His eyes flared black.

  I tried to squelch my gasp, but from the muscle that twitched in Ro’s jaw, I wasn’t successful.

  “You’ll have to give us more than that,” my boyfriend said in that same cobra fashion that Malik had used on the other demon.

  Malik plucked Rohan’s hand off him.

  The air grew so brittle I could snap it, the loaded silence the only glue holding it together.

  A rat scuttled out of a crinkled potato chip bag, a chip in its mouth, and scurried away down the hill. Smart rodent.

  I stepped between them. “If Satan finds me, he’ll think I’m Lilith. I can bluff him with her power.”

  Malik gazed evenly at me.

  Damn it! “He’s coming for me because he thinks I am Lilith. Why?”

  The demon rocked from one heel to the other like the weight of the decision to tell me had acquired physical mass. “Only because he wants to breed her. You know, create a line of super-demons. These irksome wards never di
d pose the same problem for her offspring as they do for the rest of us. In addition to that very tantalizing perk, her progeny also tend to be faster, stronger, and wield more powerful magic. It ought to come as no surprise that Satan will rape you until he has his demons and his succession is assured.” He mock-frowned. The bastard was enjoying this. “Do you have a way to prepare for that? No?”

  Berserker fireworks exploded in my brain and the world swung sideways. I stuck out my hands for balance, but this insanity had momentum and a dizzying vertigo, and I swayed precariously.

  Mandelbaum had treated me as insignificant from day one and now Satan himself intended to render me down to a single magic part against my will, using me to further unspeakable evil?

  Rohan reached for me, then dropped his hands to his side. “Who’s acting as Satan now? Which demon’s on the throne?”

  “Hang on,” I interrupted. “Satan isn’t a single demon? It’s a title? Like the Dread Pirate Roberts?” Laughter tinged with madness burst out of me. “Satan wants to ensure his lineage retains the monarchy,” I said between cackles. “Is there a coronation with a nice aged blood of virgin and a crown made of intestines and human eyeballs? Or is it more of a fascist dictatorship?”

  “How unfortunate. She’s cracked already,” Malik said.

  Rohan threw a quick, assessing glance over me, then returned to grilling Malik. “What’s your role in all this?”

  “I was charged with bringing Lila back.” The marid’s fingers flitted to his eyepatch before he thrust his hand into his pocket. “I refused initially, but we came to a compromise. I would talk her into it.”

  “As appealing as spending eternity being dicked in non-consensual sex for spawn breeding sounds, I decline the offer on Lilith’s behalf,” I said. “Take that back to your master.”

  Malik flickered into his flame essence for a second, before asserting his human form once more. “I bow to no master, but he won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. You’ll learn that soon enough.”

  My face stayed blank, my body language remained calm, yet inside I quaked at those words. “You want him to pervert her magic like this?”

  “What I want is of no consequence,” he said, but did not meet my eyes.

  My entire body was sheathed in silver magic before he’d finished his sentence. Next to me, Rohan had extended every blade on his body. “Then you’ll have to kill me to take me.”

  “Possibly. But not tonight. As usual, our interaction has been enlightening, if not entertaining.” The demon walked into the darkness. “We’ll see each other soon.”

  “Malik,” I called out softly after him. “I’m sorry. About Lilith.”

  He threw his head back to the sky. For a moment, in the indigo glow of the night clouds against the tangled silhouettes of branches, his face was so unguarded he could have passed for mortal. But then I blinked and the shadows swallowed him and he was gone.

  And then there were two.

  I planted my hands on my hips and, fully healed and full of adrenaline, glared at Rohan. I was reeling and I wasn’t about to contend with an idiot boyfriend who believed some puny dark magic aftereffects were going to phase me. “Are those fireworks of yours practical or just for funsies?”

  “It hasn’t burned itself out of me yet.” Ro said. “But I can’t use it.”

  “Excellent. Then I get to keep the title of ‘only person in this relationship who almost went nuclear with dark magic.’”

  “How can you joke? What if I’m forever changed? What good am I like this?”

  I leered at him. “You look pretty good to me.”

  “Nava.”

  “Rohan. I don’t see a problem here. You’re not contagious, you’re just a bit sparkier than I am right now. And if you’re worried about some darkness or whatever in you? Please. With all your personal demons when I first met you, it was a wonder you didn’t sprout wings and horns sooner. Hey, did you know you can’t spell ‘demon’ without ‘emo?’ I really think we’re hitting some key insights into your psyche.”

  He did not grin back. Not at first. But this was Ro and this was me and under the force of my adorable nature, I broke him and he laughed.

  “You’re something else,” he said.

  “Feel free to be specific and heavy-handed with the positive adjectives, but yeah, I am.”

  His eyes warmed, their abyssal depths cracking and melting away.

  My breath caught.

  Snowflake.

  “I thought I’d lost you.” Rohan brushed my cheek with a faint tremble. “Tell me I’m not imagining this.”

  I nuzzled into his palm. “Buddy, if you dreamed up our big reunion starring a demon attack, Malik, and me being bred by Satan like a broodmare, we’re going to have words.”

  “I’m sure I can come up with something better than that.”

  Butterflies swooped in my stomach. “Talk is cheap, Snowflake.”

  His hands bracketed my face, his heartbeat thrumming through his wrists in a thundering tempo that echoed in my blood. The ache in my chest was a tight pinch; I was so scared I’d wake up and find this was just another illusion I’d conjured to feel safe.

  I leaned in toward him—and stumbled forward into empty air as arms that were not mine wrapped around my boyfriend, lifting him off the ground and swinging him around.

  “Quit macking on my man,” I said.

  Drio nuzzled Rohan’s cheek, shooing me off. “Vai. You’re not needed anymore.”

  Rohan mugged, one-arm hugging his bestie.

  “First of all,” I snapped at Drio, “you’re about a month too late on that visual.”

  “Only a month?” Ro said.

  “And second, where were you half an hour ago when you would have been useful? The sushi joint is like five minutes away.”

  Drio bared his teeth at me. “Next time, I will not feel sorry for your pathetic lack of friends and keep that PD from running out into a fight she was not equipped for.”

  I shot him the finger. “Your concern is touching. Where’s Leo?”

  He threw me a positively evil grin and spun away.

  I leaned into Rohan with a sigh. “Rain check?”

  He put his arm around my shoulders, briefly closing his eyes and burying his face in my hair. “They get five minutes to get their shit together, then you’re mine.”

  His fierce growl sent Cuntessa swooning.

  The mystery of what Drio had done with Leo was solved when we got within ten feet of Ro’s guest bathroom and heard the furious pounding and shrieked curses of what Leo was going to do to “that Italian douchecanoe.”

  Drio smirked at the rattling bathroom door which now featured a chair wedged under its knob.

  “That chair is a vintage Harry Panlow design. Scratch the finish and you’re paying to restore it,” Rohan said.

  I placed my hand on his arm. “Or we could go with the more pressing concern which is that Drio locked my best friend in a bathroom and she’s gonna kill him.”

  “We could leave them to fight it out and may the best person win,” Rohan said.

  “Only if you want to break in a new best friend. That’s a pretty flimsy door,” I replied.

  Drio made a dismissive noise and even Ro looked amused at my suggestion.

  The door behind Drio splintered and a small hand with sparkly blue nail polish knocked the chair away. With a startled-bunny look, Drio scrambled back so fast he slipped, almost wiping out entirely.

  Leo flung a toilet plunger at Drio.

  He ducked and the plunger hit the wall. He yelled at her about contagious diseases but was cut off when she lobbed a roll of toilet paper at him instead.

  Ro put two fingers into his mouth and whistled. “Yo! Homewreckers! Here’s the deal. I am going to take an hour to reunite with my girlfriend.”

  “Fifteen minutes tops,” Leo said.

  Drio grinned at her and, for a beautiful moment, they forgot how much they hated each other. But in the next instant, their mutual scowls return
ed.

  “I’m good for half an hour at least,” Rohan insisted.

  I patted Ro’s arm. “I was dead and you were burning alive in dark magic. There’s a lot of pent-up emotions to be released.”

  “Fifteen minutes,” Rohan conceded. “During which time, you two will refrain from killing each other or interrupting us in any way, shape, or form.”

  “And take care of any more demons that show up,” I said.

  “Which I wouldn’t have to if somebody had warded up his place when he bought it,” Drio said.

  Leo squeezed her fist twice at Drio to indicate his massive douchery for ignoring that if the property was warded, she couldn’t stay here.

  “Be a Rasha and deal with it,” I said. “Besides, wards won’t do squat if Mandelbaum’s gun squad comes after us.”

  Ro shot me a helpless glance.

  “It’s been a long day. I’ll catch you up later,” I promised. “Right after my shower.”

  “Shower?” Rohan pinched the bridge of his nose.

  I didn’t want any of the filth from my captivity between us when we were finally alone. I brushed my lips against his ears. “The wait’ll be worth it.”

  He looked slightly mollified.

  “Yeah, a shower would be great for you,” Drio said, fanning his nose. “And some deodorant.”

  I crossed my arms behind my back and pinched the inside of my elbow, welcoming the sharp flare, my cheeks flaming. “Sorry for being tortured and no longer able to tell if I smell normal or awful, okay?”

  Ro had gone scarily still. His eyes flickered black, his breath coming in harsh gulps.

  Fuck! How could I have dropped that on him? “Rohan? Babe, I’m okay.”

  Shaking his head, he pushed past us out to his balcony.

  I rubbed my forehead.

  Leo sighed. Then she glared at Drio. “Get some tact, Rossi. Nee, a shower might make you feel better. I brought some of your clothes here earlier. How about I grab them?”

  “It’ll be faster if I get them.” The sneer that Drio had worn all this time was gone and his eyes were suffused with pity.

  I half-shrugged, fidgeting with the hem of my shirt, wanting to run after Ro but completely at a loss as to how to make what had happened to me into a palatable anecdote.