Rohan stood awkwardly in the foyer.
Dad opened his arms. “Come here, son.”
We all shuffled around to include Ro. Part of me wanted to laugh at how ridiculous this was, but most of me was too fucking happy that we were enveloped in a cloud of Mom’s Chanel No. 5 with Dad’s graying stubble scratching my cheek.
Mom insisted on feeding us all, ordering a week’s worth of our favorite Chinese food.
Ari and I sat on either side of Mom, each of us holding one of her hands. I’d changed out of my tunic into a cute blue sundress with pockets. Ro was to my right, with Dad across the table.
A stupid pile of food sat in the center. Ginger beef, spicy squid, Szechuan green beans, gai lan in a garlic sauce, lettuce wraps, deep fried tofu, shredded spicy pork and spinach, shrimp fried rice, and Shanghai noodles—we did our damnedest to decimate it all.
Our parents pressed us for what we’d been through, but although Ari and I gave them heavily edited versions, they seemed to age before our eyes. Mom kept twisting her wedding ring around her finger, while our father emitted a series of harsh exhales that grew louder as we told our tale.
When our eyes had glazed over from the amount we’d eaten, and Rohan had resorted to covering his plate so my mother couldn’t empty more food onto it, Mom reluctantly declared we’d had enough.
We filed into her home office. Ari, Rohan, and I squished onto her sofa, while she sat at her desk and booted up her MacBook.
I told her everything that Mandelbaum had said.
Mom muttered things like “This is bad” and “He’s a lunatic” until I couldn’t take it anymore and demanded she explain.
“Have you ever heard of the End of Days?” she said.
We all shook our heads.
“I was extremely remiss on your Jewish education.”
“Mom.” Ari crossed his arms. “Stick with the topic.”
She tapped a pen against her thigh. “Okay. Let me back up. Back in the Middle Ages, there was a famous rabbi and Torah scholar called Maimonides. One of his principles of Jewish faith was that one day there would arise a dynamic leader.”
“Like Jesus? A messiah?” Ro asked.
“Yes, but not in the Christian sense of a savior. The Jewish messiah is called the Mashiach. He would be a direct descendent of King David. According to Isaiah 11:2-5, he’ll be well-versed in Jewish law and observant of its commandments. He’ll be charismatic, inspiring others to follow his example, be a great military leader, and a great judge. But most importantly, he’ll be a human, not a god, demi-god or any other supernatural being.”
“We’ve got Mandelbaum, a rabbi who leads a military organization,” Ro said. “Even though he’s not Rasha, he is a descendent of David. And very proud of that fact.”
“He can’t be the only one who fits that criteria,” Ari said. “And why now?”
“It’s not just now,” Mom said. “Supposedly a person with that potential is born every generation. But the messianic age demands certain conditions. The potential must be born in a time that has lost hope, where many are disgusted with the breakdown of ethical and moral standards. Life is cheap, crime is rampant, drug and alcohol use are on the rise. Sound familiar?”
“Fuck.” I grimaced. “Sorry, Mom.”
She dismissed it with a wave of her hand. “To truly become the Mashiach, this person must fulfill a number of tasks. They must rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, that would be the Third Temple, and gather Jews from all over the world. Nava, you said he had permission from the planning council to start building the Temple. That takes time. He’s been working on this for a while.”
“Seven years,” I said. “How do the rabbis fit into it?”
“Ah.” Mom put on her reading glasses and consulted her computer. “Right. The Mashiach will re-establish the Sanhedrin. That’s the council of high rabbis. They’re the religious supreme court and legislature of the Jewish people.” She read off her screen. “‘I will restore your judges as at first, and your counselors as in the beginning, afterward you will be called the City of Righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed with justice, and those who return to her, with righteousness.’ That’s from Isaiah 1:26-27. The Sanhedrin would be able to formally recognize the Mashiach as the King. In fact, all nations of the world will recognize him as their king and accept his rule.”
I traced the floral pattern on the sofa cushion with my finger. “What’s in it for everyone else?”
“World peace, no more wars, no more famine, and a better standard of living across the board,” Mom said. “Jews have been praying for the Mashiach’s arrival throughout history. Even at the gates of the gas chambers, many Jews sang ‘Ani Ma’amin’ which translates as ‘I believe.’ It’s a song about the coming of the Mashiach.’”
“What’s the cost of this great messiah?” Ro asked.
Mom rolled her chair over to her bookshelf. She pulled out a slim volume and flipped through it. “The End of Days.”
“That sounds delightful.” I picked up a pencil and sticky pad off the corner of my mother’s desk and drew little rabbi stick figures with X’s through them.
“Before this new age is introduced,” Mom said, “the world will experience vast economic fluctuations, social upheaval, and widespread despair. It’ll culminate with the opening of the Gates of Alexander and the release of the most terrifying demons Gog and Magog.”
“Do you know anything about the Ring of Solomon?” I added horns to the rabbis. The resulting drawing reminded me of my hallucination while I’d been strapped to the table, so I scribbled it out.
Mom typed in a URL and brought up an academic webpage. “Given to Solomon by God, it featured a hexagram.”
“A Star of David,” Ari said.
“Correct. Made of iron or brass, the ring gave Solomon the power to command demons.”
Ugh. Sienna was right again.
“That’s one way to get all the global powers to agree to his kingliness,” I said. “Command demons to attack and be the only hope of stopping them.”
Ari whistled. “You think that was his ultimate aim? Bind this Gog and Magog and then send in the Brotherhood?”
“If that was his plan,” Mom said, “he’s perverted the entire notion of the Mashiach. It wasn’t to rule the world and dominate non-Jews, it was actually to create a world where Jews would be free to involve themselves with the Torah and its wisdom without other concerns.”
“Could demons use it on each other?” Rohan said. “Is that why Hybris wanted it?”
“If it really does exist as some kind of sacred amulet, then no,” my mother said. “The demons would be the target of a ring that was given to a human. Therefore, they’re exempt from using it.”
“Finally,” Rohan said. “A piece of good news.”
Mom clicked on to the next webpage. “Oh. This is interesting. The archangel Michael gets involved. ‘Take this ring, O Solomon King, son of David, the gift which the Lord God hath sent unto thee. Wear this ring and all the demons of the earth, both male and female, thou wilt command.’”
My vision blurred red, my internal fire flaring hot and fast.
I snapped the pencil.
Mom looked alarmed.
“Give me a minute.” I closed my eyes to sort through what could have set me off. “Lilith had some connection to this ring and Mandelbaum was convinced she’d stolen it. Is there anything about her possessing the ring on the website?”
My headache broke through the effects of the Tylenol. I massaged my temples, but my scalp was too tender to be touched.
“No.” Mom flipped through her overflowing Rolodex on her desk. “I have a colleague. Semi-retired, but if I ask he’ll speak with you. Let me call him and arrange a meeting. If anyone can give you answers about the ring, it’ll be Josip. Dr. Markovic.”
“Thanks, Mom.” As soon as I had some free time, I was using up every single massage therapy session I’d accumulated up until now. I opened my mother’s desk dr
awer. Sure enough, there was a bottle of aspirin. I helped myself to some pills. “You know, Mandelbaum likened his plan to a phoenix. He absolutely wants to become the literal ruler of the world. The phoenix isn’t reborn without fire, and the world isn’t remade without death and destruction. He’s ushering in an apocalypse.”
Ari scrolled through his phone. “There are a few possible places for the Gates of Alexander. Central Asia, Dagestan in Russia.”
“Conjecture,” Mom said. “There are no literal gates. These demons are believed to be either Turkic tribes that Alexander encountered or Mongols.”
“But demons exist and these gates might as well,” Ro said. “Shana, any idea what kind of timeline we might be looking at?”
“If we assume that he wants to pull this off as soon as possible?” Mom consulted another book. “Rosh Hashanah. The Mashiach’s coming is signaled by two things, the occasion when all souls will be judged for their last time and a tremendous shofar blast that will be heard around the world.”
“Judgment and the shofar, two hallmarks of Rosh Hashanah.” I checked this year’s date on my phone. The evening of September 18. “That gives us a month. If that rift opens on top of everything before then, the legion of demons who enter our world will make Mandelbaum’s position stronger.”
“Provided he can control them,” Rohan said. “Otherwise, even if we’ve freed the rest of the Rasha and we all fight, we’ll be sorely outnumbered.”
“Mandelbaum is an evil psychopath,” I said.
“No, he’s a man who believes he’s ushering in a better world.” Mom shelved the books she’d used. “That noble purpose makes him especially dangerous. Don’t dismiss him.”
“Yeah, Sparky. You’re always going on about shades of gray.”
“Fine. There are good points in both Mandelbaum’s and Sienna’s visions of a better future, but his is a misogynist dictatorship that could wipe out half the world and Sienna’s is a man-hating cabal. We need to ensure that neither of them ends up with ultimate power. I’m tired of everyone and their narrow-minded thinking.”
“That’s very ‘my way or the highway’ of you,” Ari said.
“Well, everyone else is stupid. Present company excepted.”
Mom promised to let me know when I could meet with Dr. Markovic and we headed outside to the car Ari and I shared.
A grizzled gardener next door trimmed Mrs. Jepson’s prized rhododendron bush.
“Hang on. I need my sunglasses.” I fumbled in my purse, raising my eyebrows at my brother.
“Military,” Ari murmured.
I sauntered up to the gardener, asking when Mrs. Jepson would be back.
“No idea.” He clipped another branch, giving it a lopsided appearance.
I clapped him on a very well-defined shoulder. “Mrs. Jepson never lets anyone trim her rhodos.”
He slapped my hand off of him, but Ro and Ari were instantly at my side.
Ro jammed a finger blade into the gardener’s neck, grabbing a gun from the small of the man’s back before the man could retrieve it.
Ari drew magic from the bush’s shadow to bind the man’s hands. “A pistol against three Rasha with magic. Were you not expecting all of us or—” His head snapped up and he knocked us sideways onto the ground.
A bullet ripped into the rhodo sending up a shower of shredded petals.
“Jepson is going to be so pissed,” I said.
My brother shadow-transported all of us into the backyard. “Stay low.”
While Ari scouted for the sniper, Ro and I peppered the gardener with questions. His stoic silence was unsurprising. Mercenaries didn’t tend to break easily.
I gripped his shoulders intending to inflict a quick memory loss on him. Generally, the memories involving me appeared as hot spots in the target’s mind. I erased them without knowing their exact contents, but this time, I probed, tracking the conversation Mandelbaum had had with this mercenary. It had occurred in the same baby-poo yellow, pockmarked concrete hallway where I’d been held captive.
“You bugged my parents’ home?” I said.
The mercenary spasmed in my magic net and his face turned a florid red. “Stay out of the rabbi’s business. Wouldn’t want that hot mom of yours to get hurt.”
I rendered him unconscious. Alrighty. Three on the magic scale was knock out territory on humans. “We need to move my parents.”
Ari staggered out of the shadows, dragging a limp body. The newcomer was bleeding from the head. Red blossomed across Ari’s shirt. He tossed a pistol with a silencer to Ro, wheezed in a breath, and fell face down on the grass.
“Ace!” I dropped to my knees, sending healing magic into him. There was an exit wound on his back so the bullet wasn’t lodged inside him, but he wasn’t breathing.
Esther’s lifeless body flashed before my eyes. There was less magic in the world available for healing than ever before, and if I couldn’t get enough to heal Esther, what chance did I have to heal Ari?
I increased my magic, but Ari didn’t stir.
Ro nudged me aside and I almost decked him. He rolled Ari over carefully. “Keep up the magic, but let me do mouth-to-mouth.”
I nodded, concentrating my magic into the hole I sensed in my twin’s lung. My hands shook and I doubled down the pressure to keep them steady. My ears rang with silent screams, an icy knife twisting my guts.
The world leached of all color, tunneling in and out of focus. No, no, no, no, no. This wasn’t going to end like Esther. Mandelbaum wasn’t going to take another person from me because I couldn’t live in a world that didn’t have Ari in it. I’d died and was given a Hail Mary, brought back by Lilith, but I was losing my twin, watching his life force bleed out in front of me despite all my efforts, with no tricks up my sleeve for that last-minute miracle.
I was losing him. A numbness filled my veins, my stillness mirroring my twin’s. I didn’t want to empathize with Sienna’s power draw to heal the wards, but yeah, I’d use every last drop of dark magic to make sure Ari lived.
The hole in Ari’s lung began to close, but he still wasn’t responding.
Rohan intensified his efforts.
My brother went limp… then coughed. A raspy, gurgling sound that was the most beautiful music ever.
Ro knelt back on his calves, one hand on Ari’s heart. “You okay, man?”
Ari stared up at the sky and nodded.
I grabbed the still-unconscious sniper and drowned him in magic.
The man bucked, his eyes rolling back to the whites. Flecks of foam appeared at the corner of his mouth.
I fried his brain synapses and destroyed his organs to the brink of functionality, to the brink of death. It barely took any effort at all. Humans were so fragile.
It was my duty to protect them.
Not all of them. I kicked the sniper in the ribs.
For every attempt to take what was sacred to me, I would send back ashes. Let them burn.
9
Ari went to talk our parents into leaving, which left Ro and me deciding what to do with the intruders so Mrs. Jepson wouldn’t return home and find two half-dead strangers in her backyard. As it was, her freak-out over her ruined rhodos was going to be epic.
Ro talked me down from throwing the men in Mandelbaum’s abandoned warehouse and setting the entire thing on fire. Too bad. Sing some campfire songs, roast some marshmallows, obliterate some bad guys, I was really onto something here.
Dragging the unconscious minions by their collars, I popped into the foyer of the Los Angeles chapter of the Brotherhood, startling a couple of witches talking at the reception desk. “Get Sienna.”
They hesitated.
I burst into full-body silver magic. “Now!”
The two vanished.
So many memories to relive while waiting here, none of them good.
“You have a lot of chutzpah showing your face.” Sienna held a take-out coffee cup.
“Don’t touch my Rasha.”
“What’s
in it for me?” She flicked a glance at the men I held.
“I won’t kill all your witches.”
“You think you could?”
“I’m very effective when motivated.”
“You wouldn’t hurt innocents.” She sipped her drink.
“There are no more innocents. You told me that.” I flung the two men on the floor in a heap. “I killed for Esther and I’d kill a thousand times over for Ari, Rohan, or my friends.”
Sienna prodded the mercenaries with her toe. “Then how come they aren’t dead? They must have done something for you to bring them here.”
“Death is a mitzvah they don’t deserve. You have a score to settle with Mandelbaum for torturing Tessa. Consider these two a gift and stay the hell away from the Rasha who got free. Do we have a deal?”
She appraised me coolly for a long moment. “When I figure out how to harvest magic, I’m coming for your friends.”
“You’ll have to get through me.”
She saluted me with the coffee cup.
Ro waited for me on my parents’ front stairs.
Mom protested being driven out of her home, but Ari and I forced the issue. She finally capitulated when I told her that hopefully she could stay with Rivka. Even though she and this Dr. Gelman hadn’t met, Mom and Esther had been friends.
I muscled down my guilt, wiped my hands on my thighs and dialed. “Hi. It’s Nava. I’m sorry…” For not saving your sister. “For missing the funeral.”
“You were dead,” Rivka said. “It seemed like an acceptable excuse. Am I speaking with a ghost?”
I gripped the phone. She had the same dry, scathing manner as Esther. “I was resuscitated. Was the funeral nice?”
Wincing, I slapped myself on the forehead.
“It was a delight. Esther’s grave plot was neither too big nor too small, I’m stocked to the gills in bagels and chopped liver, and putting the cloths on the mirrors to sit shiva gave them a nice shine.”
I silenced my sarcastic retort. I’d lost my friend, she’d lost her sister. She got to be angry. “I just wanted to give you my condolences and say that I would have been there had it been possible.”
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