The Unlikeable Demon Hunter: Burn

Chapter 2-1

2

There was no way this could be happening. Because this right here was one of my top ten worst nightmares: Drio with a lethal gleam in his eye carrying my half-goblin best friend off to be tortured. Or maybe she’d already been tortured, judging from how beat-up she looked. Whatever, this had to be the drugs. What I’d run into couldn’t’ve been Drio’s abs, but a wall. Yeah. Damn it, I wish that magic suppressant didn’t take so long to clear my system.

I rubbed my fists into my eyes hard enough to make myself see stars. “I am Nava Liron Katz. My parents are—”

“What are you babbling about?” Drio said, his Italian accent more pronounced in his irritation.

I snapped my lids open, scanning him for some hooves or a nice set of fangs to prove this was another hallucination, but all I got was an unyielding reality.

Drio stood there, all deadly arrogance, dressed in head-to-toe black. He had an iron blade angled at Leo’s carotid artery, which pulsed faintly in her throat.

She was totally pale with dark puffy bruising around one eye and blood caked at her nostrils. Her jean shorts were dirty, her T-shirt was torn, and she wasn’t wearing any of her funky silver jewelry. I wanted to wrap her in a blanket.

And kill Drio.

“Where’s the rabbi?” Drio said in a low voice.

Shrieking, I tried to blast him. My magic sparked…

…and fizzled out like a defunct firecracker.

Drio clamped his hand around my neck, lifting me off the ground so we were eye-to-eye. He squeezed my windpipe harder.

I pumped my legs like a cartoon character going nowhere, scrabbling to stay on tiptoe and keep breathing.

“You need to keep better track of your toys.” Something shifted in Drio’s eyes, his attention snapping to over my shoulder. He released me and I hit the stone floor on my knees.

Rabbi Mandelbaum and a bunch of his men stood around us.

The rabbi crossed his arms. “What are you doing here?”

Not as brutal an introduction to his dastardly lair as I’d received, but the rabbi wasn’t handing out welcome casseroles either.

Drio thrust Leo toward the rabbi. “Meet Nava’s best friend. A PD. I brought the demon here as incentive for the witch to cooperate. You want answers about the ring, sì?”

I lunged for him, but he flashed out. He reappeared on my right, the knife back at Leo’s throat, digging into her flushed skin. Blood beaded at the tip.

Leo grew even paler, if that was possible.

I stopped, my hands up, tasting the metal cold of fear.

“You’re very up-to-date,” the rabbi said.

“I want Hybris,” Drio said. “She killed Asha.”

“You don’t deserve to kill Hybris, you bast—”

Drio backhanded me with a slap that made my teeth rattle.

“How did you know Nava was alive?” the rabbi said.

Drio’s expression grew tight, his skin stretched into a snarl. “She’s like a cockroach. Hard to kill no matter how many times you try and stamp her out.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. Much as I hated myself for caring about his opinion, I hated him more because I hadn’t done anything bad. My actions helped Drio find someone he could have feelings for again. Drio hadn’t told me about Asha back then, but even if he had Leo wasn’t Hybris. She was half-human and all wonderful. I hadn’t tried to trick him. I’d tried to make him happy.

I ripped Leo from his hold. Before I could do much more, I was stabbed in the neck with another syringe and the world fell away.

I came to in the damp room, once more strapped down to that damn metal table. I could barely swallow, rage choking me.

Leo was chained to the wall in heavy iron handcuffs. Her shoulders rode up by her ears, and her face was twisted in a grimace.

I blanketed myself in a dispassionate calm. Leo and I were going to be those two old ladies who drank gin in the afternoon and went on crazy adventures, so dying now was not going to happen. I cautiously scanned the room, but reality remained solid with no hallucinations. They hadn’t given me another dose of the magic-suppressing drugs. Yet.

The Rasha that I’d incapacitated stood next to me, holding a switchblade. He was paler than I’d last seen him, with deep purple rings around his now-haunted eyes. “I was too easy on you before.”

“How’d you like the Tomb? Fun, huh?” I dug deep, past my tight ribcage, desperate for any spark of magic. There was a flutter low in my belly, barely anything. I coaxed it carefully to life, feeling like my organs were being knocked around like bowling pins.

“Which was your favorite?” I said. “The darkness that sponged up your soul or the loss of your magic gnawing at you, taunting like a phantom limb? Personally, I dug the limb thing, but the darkness really grew on me.”

The rabbi stayed the Rasha’s hand, squeezing his wrist until the knife clattered to the floor. “Drio and I have come to an arrangement.”

“Yeah? Who gets to top?” I said.

Drio crossed his arms, his expression granite. There was no trace of my former friend in the man standing before me.

Twice I lost my grip on the flutter of magic, refusing to cave to despair. Finally, my efforts were rewarded. A thread of the silver magic emblematic of Lilith’s and my combined state danced under my skin.

Now to find the best moment to strike.

“Either you give me some useful information about the ring, or Drio will kill your…” The rabbi’s lip curled in a sneer. “Pet.”

I met his eyes with deadly intent. “I don’t know what your hard-on for this ring is, but if you touch a single hair of Leo’s, I will make it my life’s mission to carve you to pieces slowly.”

“Stop your barking, puppy. You won’t let her be hurt.” Mandelbaum marched out of the room.

Oh, he did not just compare me to a dog. I was going to rip off his balls and feed them to him.

The Rasha jerked his chin at his assorted evil instruments, practically rubbing his hands in glee at getting to hurt me. “How do you want to play this?”

“Give me five minutes alone with her,” Drio said.

That suited me just fine.

“I want my turn first.” The Rasha glared at me.

Drio gave an insolent shrug. “You had your turn. You f****d up.”

“So, you come in swinging your d**k around? The exalted demon killer? Big deal. All of us kill them. I get answers.”

“Except you didn’t, paesano, did you?” Drio’s voice was a silky menace. “Now it’s my turn. She let the demon get away that killed my girlfriend, then tricked me into f*****g that…” He turned from Leo like he couldn’t bear to look at her. “Scum. She’s mine.”

Leo raised her head, hurt and anger flashing in her eyes.

I coaxed the magic from a thread to a current. It hummed in my veins, like a cat brushing up against its owner demanding affection. It was more than I’d possessed originally, but nowhere close to the strength I’d experienced when I’d freed Lilith from her imprisonment inside me at the compound.

Then again, that much magic had killed me.

Blasting the straps off, I fired both Rasha into the opposite wall, hard enough to c***k the concrete.

But instead of ganging up on me, Drio tackled the other Rasha, leaving me gaping idiotically.

“Nee.” Leo rattled the cuffs, still looking shaky. “My pocket. Get the key.”

The Rasha threw Drio. I yelped and ducked under the table as Drio crashed into it, rolled onto the ground, then dove back on top of the hunter.

I raced over to Leo and rooted around in her pocket until I found the tiny key, then quickly uncuffed her.

Leo gave a full-body exhale and tossed the cuffs into the corner farthest from her.

Drio shouldered the Rasha into the Tomb, and muscled the door shut. “Now—”

I jammed the knife that I’d picked up off the floor a hair’s breadth away from his d**k. “You hurt Leo.”

Drio tensed, practically flattening himself against the wall.

“Can you flash out before I stab you? One whisper of wind and your Italian Stallion days are over.”

“Pony club,” Leo muttered.

Drio snarled at both of us, careful to keep his pelvis tipped away from the blade. “It’s makeup. Leonie, tell her.”

Leo’s lip quivered. “He was horrible.”

I pressed the blade harder against the crotch of his jeans.

“Leo,” he snapped.

“Fine.” She tapped a finger against the bruise on her face. “It’s makeup. Asshole.”

“Idiota. I’m here to rescue you.”

I glanced at Leo, who nodded.

“Correction: we’re here to rescue you,” she said. “Double asshole.”

Dropping the knife, I shoved Drio hard. “I was saving myself, thank you very much. Until you barged in and bungled it. And did you really have to lock Leo up with iron cuffs, you d**k?”

Leo stomped on his foot. “Especially since the plan was for metal ones.”

Drio winced. “Mandelbaum wouldn’t have believed anything else.”

“You could have warned me,” she said.

“Genuine reaction sells the moment.” He waved his hand at us in some kind of vague Italian threat. “Stop chattering. We have to get out of here.”

“Thank you for the mansplanation, but this ‘we’ only includes me and Leo for now. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you? Leo doesn’t like you, and I’m sure Ro can find another best friend.”

Drio shot Leo a worried look.

“You know something about Ro?”

“No.” Drio flashed past me, but I was closer to the door and I flung myself backward at it, catching him in the doorframe.

Swearing, he flickered in.

I twisted his collar. “What’s happened to Rohan?”

In all the time I’d been here, I hadn’t allowed myself to think of a worst-case scenario. Not that there was a best case when someone had been hit with dark magic. Just… not worst. Dark magic had killed Tessa. Literally burned her up from the inside, and granted Rohan wasn’t a habitual user of the dark arts, but he hadn’t built up any tolerance to it either.

Leo tried to pull me away.

“Tell me.” My voice was just shy of a shriek. “Is he dead?”

“No! I don’t think. No,” Drio said more quietly. “Raquel rescued him from the compound to heal the dark magic, but it’s still f****d up and he’s disappeared. I thought bringing your body back would draw him out.”

A rush of relief hit me that Raquel was okay. I clung to that feeling like a life raft.

“Luckily, an alive me is even better than my corpse,” I said, the laugh coming out oddly strangled. “We’ll go to Ro’s place and I’ll do a location spell.”

“Va bene.”

“Brace yourselves.” I took each of them by the arm and got the hell out.

We landed in Rohan’s backyard, which he hadn’t gotten around to landscaping yet. It was nothing more than patchy scrub and weeds choking a gently sloping hill.

The thrum of magic under my skin once more was both exhausting and exhilarating, while the simple act of portalling felt like a workout that left me stiff and sore but deeply satisfied. The feeling of freedom was even better, even if it was coupled with my dread that something was wrong with Rohan.

I shielded my eyes with one hand, my eyeballs sizzling like a well-done steak, having not seen sunlight in a while. The heat was a physical force pushing down on me, burning my lungs with each inhale.

The property was deserted, the windows and doors locked up tight. The last time I’d been here, the house had been full of laughter and camaraderie. And love. There had been so much of that. Now, it had a lonely, deserted air to it that no amount of sunshine could banish.

Drio unlocked the door.

I hesitated on the front stoop. If I didn’t go in, I couldn’t prove that Ro wasn’t there.

Leo put an arm around my shoulders. “I’m right here for you.”

Nodding, I stepped inside with a determined stride. “Let’s hit his bedroom and find something personal for the spell.”

The house smelled like him, that combination of iron and musk a punch to my heart. I narrowed my eyes to slits as if that could block out the memories assaulting me. The first time he’d brought me here on the night of our fake engagement he’d shown me the tap studio he’d installed for me. That same night that we’d both forgiven each other for all the hurt we’d caused, and in our fragile new state, he’d confessed that he’d never made love to anyone in his bed.