Even my arrival with the cyclops demons didn’t stir most of the people up, which was a sad testimony to how desensitized our world had become.
The Israeli soldiers, men and women stationed there, however, moved in fast.
“No hurting humans!” I yelled at the cyclops. “Find Gog and—”
One of the cyclops fell to the ground, his magic streaming from his body into Rabbi Mandelbaum.
A hush fell over everyone in viewing distance as they processed what this blue light funneling into the mouth of a well-dressed orthodox rabbi meant.
Pro tip: when dealing with the demons that terrify all the rest of the demons, it’s useful to dig deeper and quantify why.
Gog and Magog were freaking magic-eaters.
The cyclops demon shriveled up and disappeared.
“Be not afraid, for I am the Mashiach!” Mandelbaum threw his arms out like our most benevolent savior. His face rippled and morphed into two heads, each with overly pronounced foreheads, four red glowing eyes, and jaws that unhinged to reveal tusk-like fangs.
That’s when the screaming began.
Half of the soldiers attempted to marshal people out of the plaza, while the other half trained guns on anything that moved, awaiting orders from their female leader, who argued with Baruch in rapid Hebrew.
The Rasha on my team attempted to neutralize Mandelbaum’s men, while the witches, including Sienna’s crew, played Find the Rabbi because he had this shiny new ability to zip around in a blur.
Mandelbaum sped between Malik’s demons, coming into focus for the split second it took to touch them. The cyclops fell like dominoes, their magic pouring into Mandelbaum in a blue river, before they winked into oblivion. Malik was going to be so pissed.
A breeze feathered against me.
Demon.
I portalled to the other end of the plaza, narrowly avoiding Mandelbaum’s touch.
Rohan grabbed me and exhaled hard. “You’re okay.”
Words tumbled out of me. “I thought I was so clever, but I was so stupid. I let Miriam play me and I didn’t understand and I opened the gates for him.”
“Nava. Calm down.”
I couldn’t. I was shaking too hard, gripping his sleeve. “Mom even told us. The ring commands all demons, male and female, remember? Judaism is a patriarchal religion. Witches were considered female demons. The ring was meant to command us as well, and Rasha have our magic. The only reason I could use it and demons can’t is because I’m human. But Mandelbaum can bind any of us with magic provided he knows our full name!”
One of Mandelbaum’s snipers fired at a soldier, who fell to the ground bleeding from the shoulder. Immediately two other soldiers fired back, riddling the sniper with bullets.
I dug my fingers into my hair like claws. “Fuuuuuuuck!”
Rohan bracketed my face. “Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, then bliss.”
His touch calmed me; the absolute conviction in my ability that shone from his eyes anchored me. “Got it?”
I nodded.
He kissed me and, running into the crowd, executed a beautiful roundhouse kick on an unfamiliar Rasha who’d snuck up on Jezebel. She spun in shock, but quickly regained her bearings and blasted the Rasha unconscious.
She scowled at me. “You gonna stand there staring or go get that bastard?”
“Right.” I pushed through the stampeding crowd.
Soldiers did their best to secure the plaza and herd the innocents away, but mob panic had taken root. A woman holding a young child fell and would have been trampled, had Drio not sped her to safety.
Ari, Kane, Mahmud, Danilo, Cisco, and about a dozen other of my Rasha friends fanned out through the plaza to help. Even Leo was there, escorting people out of the danger zone.
I was swallowed by the crowd, unable to see beyond the chaos, so I launched myself to the top of the Wailing Wall for a better view.
One of Mandelbaum’s Sanhedrin, an ancient guy who made Rabbi Abrams look spry, clutched his heart and keeled over at the sight of me defiling the wall. The shofar fell from his hand.
The religious population crowded under me screaming in Hebrew. There was much wailing to the heavens and tugging on their beards.
Sienna’s witches had Mandelbaum circled.
“Don’t let him touch you!” I pulled this cool bullhorn effect out of my ass.
One of the Hasidim screamed at the soldiers to shoot me down.
“Or immortalize me on a coin once I’ve saved your misogynist asses,” I said.
A couple of witches launched themselves at the rabbi.
He allowed them to get their hands on him and then sucked their magic out.
“Noooo!” I fired at Mandelbaum, but he threw up a magic shield and my magic bounced harmlessly off it.
For a follow-up trick, he threw the handful of soldiers closing in on him across the plaza. Mercifully, he didn’t take out the few stupid spectators who’d refused to leave. Though being ploughed down like bowling balls might have knocked some sense into their streaming-obsessed brains.
Baruch took care of that, bashing two of their skulls together and yelling “Go!” at them.
They fled.
We’d cleared the plaza of all non-magics and Baruch had convinced the female soldier to retreat with her people to a far back perimeter.
Raquel issued orders. Some fighters, Rasha and witches both, she sent to help Sienna take down Mandelbaum. Others scrambled to secure Miriam, while the rest went for snipers and the opposing Rasha.
Mandelbaum remained protected by the magic shield that Gog and Magog had erected.
My vision darkened, fire and brimstone of grisly black and orange dancing before my eyes. A roaring filled my ears and I stumbled forward as the world surged.
The sky boiled red, heavy, oppressive clouds churning. A pervasive decay permeated the air. It was the smell of death and decomposition with a top note of sweat and human misery.
Icy winds tore through the plaza, buffeting me and making my eyes water. I forced myself to look at the howling epicenter of horror and all the color drained from my face.
This wasn’t the Zone. It was our world, but the rift had broken through. It had grown, fading away high in the sky. Blue veiny cracks shimmered through the paper-thin barrier and its festering edges were mottled gray like old, diseased steak. Demons of all shapes and sizes trampled each other in their frantic attempts to break through and attack, their anguished braying a deafening cacophony.
It almost drowned out the screams from the humans.
If the rift opened, the sheer amount of demons pouring into our world would topple whatever strength the wards had left. It wouldn’t just be this one hole to plug, this one horde of demons to contend with, our entire world would be theirs for the taking.
Witches crowded shoulder-to-shoulder, firing their healing magic into it, lighting up the world in magic solidarity. Hundreds of women of every shape, size, age, and ethnicity, battled back against this foul poison, bodies twisted and faces contorted in pain.
I baited Gog and Magog, keeping the monster away from the women and their much-needed magic, while my Rasha neutralized Mandelbaum’s men. It was creepy as fuck watching the snipers soundlessly spraying bullets into the howling wind. Luckily, the snipers were quickly disarmed and herded to the Israeli soldiers for safe-keeping.
Sienna’s witches hesitated. They had to rid themselves of their dark magic, but they clearly didn’t want to leave themselves powerless. I could have made them, but I was done forcing people. They had to choose to do the right thing.
“This was never about the magic,” Sienna yelled, and ran for Gog and Magog with her strength of purpose and her determination to save us. She was beautiful and I wanted to be exactly like her.
Mandelbaum’s hand clamped down on her shoulder. Black magic ripped out of her and into the mouth of his once-again human face. “I am your Mashiach. I usher in the End of Days, cleansing this world of all abominations, to bring you peace and prosperity.”<
br />
Sienna fell to the ground and my heart skipped a beat.
I portalled over to her. “Sienna?”
“My magic is gone. All of it.” Her trembling fingers flexed but no magic issued forth.
Her witches screamed and sprinted for Mandelbaum, sacrificing their magic for the sake of the wards.
They were magnificent. They were also cranking Gog and Magog’s power up to incomprehensible levels. It shone out of Mandelbaum in cracks.
Mandelbaum struggled to contain it.
I took advantage of his distraction and portalled to the front of the column of witches dealing with the rift.
There was no scaling my magic up along a dial, nervously weighing the risks versus the benefits. I simply opened and healing gold magic flowed.
The demon magic in the rift was a dark predator, furious at being denied access. It savaged me, our magic entangled and battling for dominance. I took it inside myself, let it know the shape of me, let it know without any doubt that it had met its match. Its teeth were blunt fangs, mine were row upon row of razors. I laughed at its heinous intent, nipping it down to size like it was a misbehaving puppy.
The barrier grew thicker and more opaque.
The demons were knocked back. They redoubled their efforts to get through.
The rift groaned. It rippled.
And finally, it started to shrink. The edges dropped: one hundred feet high, fifty feet high, thirty feet.
The smaller it got, the harder the demons fought back and the slower the progress became. We battled for every precious inch that sucker deflated.
I dug my heels into the ground and screamed myself raw, growing lightheaded, the magic’s brilliance fading as exhaustion took over.
The rift was no more than five feet across now, but I was losing my grip.
“Everyone give one last push!” I cried.
Our army of witches roared a battle cry and gave the shit out of ’er.
The rift winked out of existence.
Our celebratory cheers were cut short by a witch’s scream.
Mandelbaum had stabilized and was on the rampage again.
We couldn’t get to him, but he could still get to the witches, blurring around them and sucking out their power.
Led by Sienna, the magicless women swarmed him, using feet, fists, rocks, anything to hurt him, a warrior army of righteous babes filled with fury.
Mandelbaum’s face did that creepy demon ripple again. His arms flexed into ropes of muscle that ended in hammers. He flung the women away, but his demon image flickered.
“More magic,” he roared.
The rest of us upped our assault on him, our magic lighting up this sacred site, but we’d been weakened by closing the rift and Gog and Magog’s shield held strong.
Those of the Rasha not rounding up Mandelbaum’s Rasha—i.e. knocking them unconscious for good measure—helped us wherever they could, but the rabbi had decided his former Brotherhood was an easy target.
A lot of them lost their magic, good and bad guys alike, but their training kept them fighting. The second that Mandelbaum drained a hunter, that man flipped into a physical assault on his enemy.
A number of witches noted this in approval.
Baruch stopped Sienna from rushing once more into the fight. “Step down. Without your magic and as tired as you are, you’re more of a liability at this point.”
“You can’t tell me what to do.”
“You’re as touchy as Nava,” Raquel said.
“Hey!” I protested.
“We need you around to rebuild,” Raquel said.
Sienna crossed her arms. “I don’t have any magic.”
“We’ve got plenty of magic. You have knowledge and experience,” Raquel said. “That’s more valuable. It’s an official council order.”
Sienna nodded and went to speak to her witches.
Then, in perhaps the sweetest fake-out of all-time, Shivani and Rivka pretended to be all elderly and feeble, allowing Miriam to draw them toward the rabbi. At the last second, they lashed back, knocking Miriam into him.
She screeched her allegiance, but neither Gog and Magog nor Mandelbaum had any loyalty. Magic drained out of her, the rabbi gulping it down with relish.
Raquel stationed witches as guards over all of the defeated. The Israeli soldiers stood with them.
Mandelbaum lumbered toward me with a cruel smile. “Nava. Your turn.”
Ari, Kane, Rohan, and Drio flanked me, but I stepped forward.
Who did he think he was with his smirk and his condescension, deciding what was right for the world?
I blasted the ground out from under the rabbi. He stumbled and his shield rippled, allowing me to rocket him into the Wailing Wall. Limestone bricks shattered, crumbling to dust.
I stalked toward him. My fingers twitched. I was going to kill him.
No, death was a mitzvah he didn’t deserve. I was going to obliterate him. Erase him from everyone’s memories, from the annals of history itself, leaving him a lost and broken soul, wandering aimless, friendless, and forgotten.
Fire engulfed me. In my mind’s eye, I held my arm out, fascinated by how the skin charred and bubbled, leaving only a Nava-shaped flame of vengeance. There was a freedom in burning.
It’s my legacy.
The words were accompanied by a deep sorrow and a tickle of fear that I’d miss something important if I let myself be consumed.
Baruch and Raquel were bringing former enemies into our fold to create a better world. They were moving forward inclusively, while the other Rasha and witches fought together, building a new future together.
Purpose, community, happiness.
In my mind’s eye, the world grew darker and darker, acrid smoke streaking the sky. Parts of me dropped away in ashy heaps that swirled around my ankles like a river. I burned bright and brilliant, old as the stars, but this time, I knew how to stop it.
More importantly, I wanted to stop it. I touched the lighter in my pocket.
The flame burns brightest in the darkest night.
This was a good run, but it was time to kiss my magic goodbye.
“No! You accepted my magic. You are mine.” The words were spoken clearly inside my head. Lilith was no longer a barely-there spark, or tangled and lost beneath our combined magic. She’d bided her time and gathered her strength.
She was back.
26
“Blah, blah, blah. Rage all you want,” I told her. “The only way you’ll claim me is over my dead body. And oh, wait. We ran that script already. You didn’t get me then and you won’t now. I am my parents’ daughter. I am my brother’s twin. I am Rohan’s girlfriend. I am friend to my friends. But above all, I am myself. I am Nava Liron Katz and you can’t have me.”
“Lilith?” Ro said.
I nodded.
Lilith shut down my muscular system with a snap that almost broke my neck.
“I need to get the ring off Mandelbaum’s sausage finger.” I wrestled control of the magic and my body away from Lilith.
“You can’t touch him,” Ari said.
“I have to. There’s no other way to get that ring and stop Gog and Magog.”
The rabbi stood up. There was dust all over his suit and blood streamed down one side of his human face. He lurched toward me.
The witches did their best to slow him down.
“Let someone else do it,” Rohan said. “Someone who’s lost their magic already.”
“No,” I said. “This was always going to come down to Mandelbaum and me.”
“You’ll lose all your magic,” Rohan said.
“My magic isn’t the same as my happiness. Esther’s message to me was that the flame burns brightest in the darkest night. The flame isn’t my magic. It’s me.”
He smiled at me. “You’re the goddamned sun.”
“Told you.”
“What do you need?” Ari said.
“Babyslay?” Kane yelped as my mouth sealed shut.
&n
bsp; Fucking Lilith.
Ari held out his hand.
I wrote four letters on it, just like in our games of old trying to sneak messages past our parents.
“Bait,” Ari said. “She needs bait.”
Kane raised his hand. “Allow me.”
“No way,” Ari said. “Your stupid hero impulses will cost you your magic.”
“Ah, but that’s the point, darling boy. I’ve had my kills and I can still fight the good fight with my brilliant coding. I don’t want to be toxic anymore. Well, one last time.”
Leo arrived while Ari and Kane bickered and I spasmed wildly, fighting Lilith for control. Again.
“You people are hopeless,” Leo said and charged the rabbi.
Drio caught her at the last second. He was so fast, all I saw was Leo jerk backward like she’d been caught around the waist with a hook. He deposited her on her feet alongside the rest of us.
She smacked him. “You had no right.”
“You are insane and suicidal,” he snapped.
She glanced at Mandelbaum. “I could have been human.”
Drio regarded her gravely. “You are human.”
Leo reached for him, then dropped her hand abruptly, marching off in the opposite direction. A look of shock and extreme anguish crossed over his features as he watched her leave him, then he flashed out the other way.
Kane smirked at the two of them. “We’re still cuter.”
Ari grabbed Kane’s head in his hands and kissed him. It was adorable, but ewww, still my brother. “I love you.”
Kane jutted out his chin. “Obviously. I’m eminently loveable.”
I gained the upper hand with Lilith, at least momentarily. “Do your thing, Poison Prince. Distract him so I can surprise him and get the ring.”
Kane tangled his fingers for a brief instant with Ari’s. “I love you, too.” He jogged toward the rabbi, his hands up. “Parley!”
The witches halted their attack.
My badass brother was blushing and staring at Kane with a totally besotted look on his face.
“We’re going to have to up our cute factor,” I told Ro.
“No shit.”
Ari smirked.
I turned to Leo. “I’m sorry for what I did. It was temporary insanity.”
Nava Katz Box Set 2 Page 90