The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz Book 1) Read online

  Rohan brought the open book over to me. He nudged my elbow away to perch on the arm of my chair, shoving the book under my nose.

  I read the passage he pointed to. “Okay, this weak spot can be located anywhere in a demon’s body, ranging from the bottom of their foot to behind their eyes.” I scanned the rest of the page. “You know, I always thought that the way to kill a demon was through its heart.”

  Rohan snorted. “What do you think a heart is?”

  I twisted about half an inch to better face him. My arm skimmed his thigh, his muscles clenching in response. I could do this call and answer with his body part all day. “Does this weak spot have a name?” I asked.

  He shifted his weight, his hip resting against my shoulder. “I told you, the heart.”

  The words blurred meaninglessly on the page. I felt like I was back in ninth grade at the movie theater with Adam Kim, so focused on the minutiae of movements between our bodies that the entire screen had been a giant white blob.

  My chest brushed his forearm. I was more than a bit curious if all this touching was a coincidence on his part or more of some endless game we seemed to be playing. “You aren’t being metaphoric, then.”

  “It’s true on many levels.”

  I ran my finger over the heart tattoo on his left bicep. “What baggage-laden break up led to this visual reminder, hmmm?”

  “Focus.” His breath tickled the back of my neck as he leaned over me.

  Dilemma. I was torn between prolonging any part of Rohan touching any part of me and giving in to being a curious kitten. I raised my eyes to his, unable to resist asking. “Come on, who was she?”

  Rohan stood up abruptly, snapping the book shut.

  Stupid curiosity.

  “You can’t be buried in a Jewish cemetery,” I said, trying a different tack. “Not with tattoos.”

  That got me a wry smile. “What gives you the impression I think there will be anything left of me to bury?”

  Wow. These dudes were grim.

  “How am I supposed to know which demon has which weak spot?”

  Rohan replaced the book, waving a hand around the library. “You learn.”

  Sure, Ari had shared some details of demons and hunting with me, but taking in the plethora of books now, I had a long way to go to even learn the basics. I sighed in resignation. “Where’s my Giles?”

  Rohan stared blankly at me.

  “You know,” I said, “the stuffy-yet-caring resident librarian mentor who provides helpful and timely info on a demon-by-demon basis?”

  “There’s no librarian.” Rohan tapped his head. “You are your own librarian.”

  Great. Initiates got a lifetime of mentoring in demonology but I was told to independent study my way through. “Right.”

  I trolled the shelves, running my finger along the spines. Most of the books featured the same publisher’s imprint on their spine: the letters BD in white against a black square background. Made sense that the Brotherhood printed their material in-house. “How about a podcast?”

  “No.”

  “Cheat sheet?”

  Rohan gave a slow, disbelieving shake of his head. “It’s called reading. Your commitment to apathy is impressive.”

  I moved to the next bookshelf, tossing him a smile over my shoulder. “Why, Mr. Mitra, you say the sweetest things.”

  In the window’s reflection, I caught Rohan massaging his temples. Taunting him was fun, however…“You’re wrong about my impressive commitment,” I said, turning to face him. “It’s not to apathy. You’ve had your entire life to learn this stuff. I’m not against reading. I’m against the amount of time I’d need to get up to speed. Time which, if demons are gunning for me? I don’t have.”

  “Cheat sheets.” He looked glum.

  “Twelve point Helvetica is fine. Start with the main bad guys, ranking from domain down through species. Or a Demons for Dummies book. With lots of pictures. That works too.”

  He brightened. “We have that.” He jogged over to a far corner of the library.

  I stared in amazement as he pulled out a fat primer entitled Most Common Demons and presented it to me. “That’s a kids’ book,” I said, frowning at the bright cover.

  “Yup.” Rohan shoved it into my chest. I caught it with an unhappy thump. “None of our initiates are dummies,” he said, “but I’m guessing even you can keep up with a seven-year-old’s reading comprehension.” He patted my head.

  Did people have weak spots? Or could I just aim for the actual heart with humans? I eyed Rohan, sizing him up.

  Kane strolled into the library with a pile of books, whistling when he saw what I held. Seriously, did this guy ever wear proper clothes? “Hel-lo nightmares for days.” He dumped his books on a table, snatched mine out of my hands, and flipped through it. “This sucker frightened me out of my wits.”

  I peered at the illustration. “It looks like an evil Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.”

  His eyes lit up. “Exactly! It’s a kappa demon from Japan. I lived in terror of it coming after me.”

  “Why? Some kind of connection to your heritage?”

  He stared at me like I was stupid. “It sucks your entrails out through the ass. Do you know how scary that was to a chubby gay kid?” He gave an exaggerated shudder, handing the book back to me.

  “I look forward to finding my own personal nightmare,” I said.

  Speaking of Rohan, he rolled his eyes but before he could say anything, there was an unsettling high-pitched whistle from the woods out back.

  Kane peered out the window. “Demon.”

  I hugged the book to my chest. “Asmodeus?”

  “Nope. That was the cry of the curupira.” Kane shot me an odd look. “Why would you think that?”

  I sank into a chair, weak-kneed in relief. “You better go kill it.”

  “Wrong pronoun, Lolita.” Rohan tugged me to my feet. “Show time.”

  8

  When my protests of “I’ve only been training for a couple of hours,” and “you should never meet a demon on an empty stomach,” failed to work, I went for Plan B and dug my heels into the grass in the backyard like a little kid.

  Rohan hauled me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, ignoring all my pummeling until he’d stepped through a heavy iron door set into the back fence, at which point he dumped me on the ground.

  Outside the wards.

  I scrambled to my feet.

  Rohan whistled some bird call and a moment later Baruch jogged out of the trees, a bruise blossoming on his cheekbone. He nodded when he saw me. “Good. Now you can show us what you did with the brother.”

  “Huh?”

  As if choreographed, he and Rohan stepped in sync to one side, right as a demon charged me with a chilling growl. Unlike the araculum, this demon was humanoid. Ish. About the height of your standard NBA player, his red eyes burned like glowing coals. Jagged fangs protruded from his fleshy lips and a matted black pelt covered his torso, but the most terrifying thing about him was his enormous cock. It jutted out erect, a non-bobbing zucchini of such knobby rigidity that I wouldn’t have been surprised if he swatted Mack trucks out of his path with it.

  This time when I ran screaming, hopping tree roots, and stirring up piles of damp, decomposing leaves, I shot off wild blasts of electricity. My training had really taken.

  “I wouldn’t,” Rohan called out. “He’ll just see you as prey.”

  “Do what you did to the brother,” Baruch ordered.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Penisaurus Rex. Hell, no. Having run in a wide circle back to my starting point, I beelined for Tree Trunk, determined to hide behind him. Yeah, right. As soon as I got within arm’s range, Baruch pushed me back into the demon’s path.

  The evil spawn scooped me up from behind and squeezed. Not the boobs! I gritted my teeth against the pain flaring in my sensitive flesh and yanked my knees up to my chest, grateful for my years of tap training and core strength because no way were my parents going
to identify my body while impaled on his member.

  Pain quickly became my secondary concern. The pressure on my rib cage soon hurtled toward total pulverization. I couldn’t access my magic, couldn’t do anything except be crushed to death. At least I’d have a lovely soundtrack of gaily twittering birds to accompany my death throes.

  Keeping me imprisoned with one arm, the curupira scrabbled the fingers of his other hand against my skull, as if trying to pierce the skin.

  “He’s going to suck your brains out like a lobster claw,” Rohan said in a conversational tone.

  I jerked my head sideways, trying to escape the demon’s sharp fingernail now seeking the right spot to drill down into my head, and was rewarded with a sapling thwack to the cheek.

  “Show me how you killed Asmodeus’ bastard,” Baruch said. “When it was just you and him. You’ve got the power. Use it.”

  Any second now, I’d black out and become lunch. I clawed at the demon’s arms, desperate to loosen his hold so I could inhale, but there was no shaking him loose.

  Assholes one and two did nothing.

  My body burned. With rage. A scream tore from my throat as I fired up. The current arcing off my fingertips was a sharp agony. The air stank of burning hair. The demon’s chest, my head.

  Visualizing, I slammed my switch on, letting it pulsate with electricity. I imagined it racing through my veins, my very blood alight. My entire body glowed blue, a violent crackle filling my ears.

  I slammed my hand onto the demon’s thigh. Hang on. His thigh should have been too big for my hand to curve around.

  Damnation, not again! I ripped my hand off his dick and planted it on his hip.

  The demon flinched enough to drop me but he didn’t die. I hit the ground in a sprawl, brushing dirt from my eyes, my shin cracking against the edge of a small boulder. “Fuck,” I gasped, gulping down blessed lungfuls of air.

  Sparks flew off me, one catching fire on the edge of a dry, rotting log. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rohan spring into action, smothering the wood with wet leaves.

  I was more pre-occupied by the fact that even though the demon stood in front of me, I was looking at his heels and not his toes. I didn’t have time to ponder the mystery because he grabbed my hair, yanking a good handful out in my subsequent roll away.

  I jumped up. Tiny sparks crunched between the soles of my feet and the dirt, tickling in an itchy sensation.

  The demon lunged for me on what I now saw were his backwards feet.

  Dancing and bobbing, careful not to trip on the uneven ground, I focused on not being grabbed, because I had no clue how to fight this thing. The only thing that came to mind was Sandra Bullock’s self-defense demo in one of my favorite movies Miss Congeniality. S.I.N.G.

  I didn’t think I could get in close enough to do any damage to his solar plexus but maybe his instep was a possibility. Take him down via his freaky tootsies. I dove onto the ground, rolling to grab his ankle. Once I had a firm grasp, I fired my current into him.

  A furious howl tore from his throat and he kicked out, trying to buck me off, but I held strong, so he picked me up by my ankles, facing outward. The forest swung upside down with a sickening blur.

  I slid my zapping hands up his sandpapery calves, trying to get a hold on him to break free. Sadly, my attack provoked more than pained him. Still holding me by my ankles, he shook me violently, his bulbous knob poking me in the small of my back. Beyond gross. Trying not to touch it, I shot my magic behind me in what I hoped was the right direction. There was a sizzling sound, like franks on a grill. Though given that his dick fell to the ground wizened and black, his wiener did not plump when you cooked it.

  The demon roared, shaking me hard enough to rattle my teeth.

  Using what little stamina I had left, I rocked myself backward, getting a firmer grip on his legs. I pretty much pawed him all over, and while my magic had to hurt, my situation seemed pointless until I grabbed and squeezed the demon’s kneecap.

  The sweet spot.

  The creature was engulfed in current. He dropped me on my back with a hard thunk, as he exploded into red dust. White and blue spots danced before my eyes.

  I lay there a moment, letting the tree canopy come into focus before sitting up, rubbing my shoulder, and spitting demony powder out of my mouth. As glad as I was to be alive, I was livid at having been pushed into that little demonstration that way. How about a gentle guiding on day one for the new girl? I glowered at Rohan and Baruch.

  They stared back at me gobsmacked, all color drained from their faces. Rohan’s hand snaked protectively in front of his crotch as my eyes met his.

  That’s what he took away from this?

  I pushed to my feet. There were a million snarky remarks I could have made except I didn’t trust my voice right now. I couldn’t get my ribcage to unconstrict and I was shaking so hard, I’m amazed my brain didn’t plop out.

  Ignoring the tiny abrasions on my soles, I strode off without a look back, my breath coming in furious gasps. I entered the house via the back door in the kitchen, searching for a woman’s washroom until I realized there wasn’t one because they all sucked and then barricaded myself in the one bathroom I was able to find. For something used by all men, it was a clean enough room with the dark wood vanity/white counter combo all in vogue.

  Expression stuck in a snarl, I pumped soap onto my hand, wincing as it hit my cracked bleeding skin from my demon-inspired obsessive hand washing. Kicking the vanity door didn’t help. It hurt my toes and did nothing to make me feel better.

  What kind of sick sadists threw a total newbie into proving herself like that? Those two would have let me die and chalked it up to my incompetence. I grabbed some toilet paper and blew my nose.

  Forget the demons, these people were the monsters.

  There was a soft rap at the door. “Nava?” It sounded like Kane but I wasn’t sure so I didn’t answer. “Babyslay, let me in.”

  I debated ignoring him some more, but I was going to need an escort to get out of this place unharmed and Kane seemed like my sole ally. I tossed the toilet paper into the bowl and unlocked the door.

  The first thing I noticed was his terrible taste in shirts. A paisley pattern in lurid purples, it was a bold look. A look that slapped itself on the crotch and said, “Here I am.” I respected that about it.

  The second thing I noticed was the compassion in his eyes.

  The third was the Gatorade he held out to me.

  I chugged half the bottle in one go, before pressing it in sweet relief against my forehead. “I don’t even like this shit.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Your body craves the electrolytes to recharge after using your power. You’ll learn to keep stashes handy.” Kane leaned back against the closed door. “Our powers don’t manifest the second they do the induction ceremony. I don’t know if anyone told you that.”

  “I’ve been told very little about this process.”

  “It means that a lot of us find ourselves in extremely embarrassing situations when it shows up.”

  “Was yours bad?” I asked.

  He laughed mirthlessly, his hip braced against the door. “Dad had this vintage Ferrari convertible. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life. He’d take me out for rides.” Kane’s expression grew dreamy. “We wouldn’t even talk. It was all about feeling the curve of the road. The sun on our faces and the wind in our hair.”

  The past tense of this didn’t sound good. “What happened?”

  “After I became Rasha, my parents were so thrilled that Dad said I could take her for a spin. So long as I washed her first, she was mine for the rest of the day.” A wistful look came over his face, as he leaned back against the door. “I think I was more excited about that then fighting demons. Picture it. This perfect summer day. This perfect specimen of a man washing this perfect car.”

  I gave the requisite smile.

  “Do you know the effects of water and salt on iron?” he asked.
r />   “Rust,” I replied, confused at the change in topic.

  He nodded and held out his arm. “Look, but don’t touch.” His flesh broke out in an oily sheen. An iridescent purple flecked with tiny white crystals. “It’s a salt-based poison.”

  I would have guessed that from the smell alone. My mouth watered bitterly. I raised my eyes to his and gasped. Even his face was coated with it.

  “One bad touch and the demons die,” he said.

  I peered at his flesh, fascinated. “What about if a person touches it?”

  “Trust me. You don’t want to know.” The sheen disappeared from his body.

  I reached out to touch him but he flinched away, shaking his head. “Wait.” He turned on the tap and dispensing a good handful of liquid soap with his clean hand, washed where the poison had been. “Until I clean off, I can still burn you.”

  “I’m sorry.” That seemed like it might be a lonely existence.

  “It’s always the pretty ones you have to look out for.” He shrugged. “I can control it. Now. But the poor, wet car? When my powers showed up?”

  “Rusted,” I gasped.

  “Instantly.”

  “What did your dad do?”

  An unreadable expression flashed across his face. “That, dear girl, is a story for another day. All this to say: your. Power. Is. Fabulous!” His face brightened. “Do you know how many asshole dates I could have cut short with it?”

  “I am not giving demon hand jobs.”

  Kane pulled the hand towel off the rack and wiped his dripping face and arm dry. “While I can’t wait to hear the story of your first kill, Baruch and Rohan just did what they’d do to any new member.” His eyes widened theatrically. “Oops. Phrasing.”