The Unlikeable Demon Hunter: Burn E-Book

Deborah Wilde

• Herausgeber: Te Da Media
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Enjoy this urban fantasy series by best-selling author Deborah Wilde. Featuring a snarky heroine, kickass action, and spicy romance, this hilarious adventure sucker-punches you in the heart when you're not looking.

It’s the End of the World as We Know It.

Nava has come a long way from being a hot mess flying solo. She’s now one of the major players on the chessboard, leading the charge against a witch with dark magic, a power-mad rabbi, and the impending apocalypse.

Friends will die and secrets will be exposed. Add imprisonment, torture, and the biggest, baddest demon of them all who has plans for her, and it’s a lot for a girl to take in. 

Time to rally the troops and make her last stand, because she’s damned if she’ll let the end of the world get in the way of her romantic, sexytimes galore, happily-ever-after.

It’s trial by fire. 

Burn, baby, burn. 

This sexy, funny, paranormal series is perfect for fans of Kate Daniels, The Hollows, Elemental Assassin, Arcadia Bell, Imp Series, Crossbreed Series, Midnight Empire, and the Guild Codex.

Binge this complete series now!

Leseprobe

THE UNLIKEABLE DEMON HUNTER: BURN

DEBORAH WILDE

Copyright © 2019 by Deborah Wilde.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Cover design by Damonza

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-988681-19-1 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-988681-20-7 (EPUB)

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Excerpt from Blood & Ash

Become a Wilde One

Playlist for an Unlikeable Demon Hunter

Acknowledgments

About the Author

1

“Come on, Avon. You can’t be late for your own performance.” Cole pushed his glasses up his nose with a little face scrunch, unwilling to cross the threshold into the Zone of Chaos, a.k.a. my bedroom.

I dug through the pile of workout clothes on the closet floor and tossed a couple Ziplock bags over my shoulder. The one containing hair spray, gel, elastics, and bobby pins hit my fluffy area rug with a quiet thunk, while my jumble of makeup, false eyelashes, and glue sailed onto my mattress.

“One second.”

“Let’s go already. Parking is a bitch at the—” Cole’s irritation cut off with a yelp as a tangle of duct tape and extra shoelaces flew through the air to wing him in the shoulder.

I sat back on my calves. “I can’t find the shoes you—”

“I what?”

I shook my head to clear it. “My custom leather taps. I need them for this performance.”

“Dropping pricy hints for your next birthday? Noted. Meantime.” He nudged my dance bag across the floor. “Your shoes are in here. You put them in last night.”

I pulled them out. Black worn taps. Not purple and red saddle shoes with a red heart.

“These aren’t them. They don’t fit anymore.” My voice caught on a half-sob.

Cole crouched down next to me and slid one onto my left foot. “They fit fine.”

I ripped it off. “They don’t.”

Yeah, I was being sulky and kind of childish, but I was a performer. Performers needed the right tools to put on a good show and the shoes I was looking for and annoyingly not finding were it for me. The old shoes would be okay, but I intended to set the world on fire.

“You want to try dancing your heart out in front of a crowd wearing shoes you don’t feel absolutely confident in, be my guest,” I said.

Cole put the shoe away, then grabbed my hair and makeup accoutrements, and snagged my costume bag from a chair. “Take a moment and breathe. You’ve got this. I’ll meet you at the car.”

I dropped my face into my hands. This wasn’t my pre-show jitters that I fed off to give my tapping an exhilarating edge. This was a full-blown nightmare of being backstage with the lights dimming and the audience shushing, the first notes about to play, while I stood there in the wings, all my moves forgotten.

Get it together, Katz. People were counting on me to nail this performance. I jogged down to the car, trying to weave my nerves into something more productive.

My phone beeped with a flurry of texts from Leo and my family, even my mom, telling me to break a leg. Nothing from Ari, though. I’d give him shit later when he got home from… I frowned. Where was he?

When I slid into the passenger seat of his hand-me-down clunker, Cole made a big production of ceding control of the radio dial. “M’lady.”

“M’thank you.”

“Dork.” He pulled away from the curb.

I fiddled with the cracked plastic knob, but every radio station was static. I was about to shut it off when I caught the faintest strain of a melody that filled me with hope, light, and deep anxiety. I gripped the dashboard.

“Let’s slay all our demons

I’ll lay down my knives

For you, I’ll lay down my knives.”

Cole groaned and snapped off the dial. “This emo crap can’t be helping your state of mind, babe.”

I scrambled to twist the knob back on, but the song had vanished. Just more static. I spun through radio stations and got nothing.

“Comebackcomebackcomeback!”

Deep in my core, a spark caught with an agonizing electric snap. Current snaked over my body and a scream tore from my throat.

“I know I’m good,” said a Southern Californian drawl that was dry with amusement, “but I didn’t even touch you.”

I clutched his biceps. My body relaxed and my heart slowed its galloping.

Rohan.

I opened my eyes and wriggled closer to him, my cheek finding his solid pecs the perfect pillow. A dusting of dark hair tickled my nose. “If you can’t tell the difference between an orgasm and a nightmare, you might need to rethink your technique.”

He rolled me over and pinned me against the cool sheets, edging one knee between my legs. “Yeah? You think I need practice?”

I ran my hands down his bare skin to his hipbone. “I mean, it does make perfect. And you are kind of anal about your technique.”

“You’re getting kind of anal, too,” he snickered.

I brushed my fingers over his erection and he hissed. “That’s right, buddy. You can crack jokes or go for door number two.”

Rohan waggled his eyebrows.

Groaning loudly, I flopped onto my back.

Ro stretched out against me, his lips brushing mine.

If I lived until ninety, I would never tire of feeling him fitted against me. How the ridge of his hip pressed into my soft curves. He was like my own personal docking station. He recharged me, but he always left me better than I was: singing a little louder, shining a little brighter.

“You looooove me,” he said.

“Weellllll.” Now it was my turn to hiss as he slid a finger inside me. My nipples tightened, and a drugged lust snaked through my veins.

“You are positively dripping with love for me.”

“You’re hopeless,” I laughed, squirming against him as he stroked Cuntessa. I brushed my breasts against his chest, loving the fierce rumble he made.

“Say it,” he growled, though he was grinning.

His love shone in the twinkle of his eyes and in the way that he stoked the fire in my body with awed adoration. We were going to grow into that old couple who always held hands and giggled at some inside joke as they tottered along at a snail’s pace.

I threaded my fingers into his hair, pulling his face close to reassure myself he was here. For as long as possible, I wanted us to stay like this, where he was my entire world. “I love you so much, Rohan. And I need you inside me.”

“Patience, sweetheart.”

“Please. Now.” My ribcage constricted and I held his forearms tighter so he couldn’t fade away.

Rohan wrapped his hand around mine, pressing it to his heart as he knelt on the bed and pushed inside me. But he didn’t move, just demolished me with a single volcanic gaze, his eyes amber rum and cinnamon.

I bucked my hips and he cocked an eyebrow at me.

“Oh good,” I said. “You remember you’re here. Inside me.”

“I could never forget that.” He fucked me in a lazy tempo. Something in my chest eased as Rohan leaned down to whisper in my ear and I laughed as his stubble tickled my neck. This was it, this was perfect.

“You’re my heart, my home. I love you, Lilith.”

I gasped, my lungs seizing.

The world was burning and I burned with it. Flames of orange and red surrounded me like a funeral pyre. The blaze popped and snarled. I thrashed, twisting, fighting to get free, but I was held fast.

Hotter and higher the fire danced. Molten agony coursed through my blood.

“Lilith, speak with me.” Rabbi Mandelbaum pried my eyes open, his rank breath hitting my face. When the world slid into focus, there was no fire. No Rohan. Just a cold, clinical room with a worked-up rabbi in a fancy suit. “I command you!”

Immediately, I wished I was dreaming again. Because no matter how bad the dreams were, they couldn’t hurt more than the truth.

The last time I’d seen Rohan, he was convulsing with the dark magic trying to take over his body.

My brother and my friends were imprisoned.

And I lay strapped to a metal table in a damp concrete room surrounded by a variety of mad scientist machines, each one colder, more soulless, and more pain-inducing than the last. Blackish-green mold streaked the bottoms of the walls like a child’s finger painting.

If I were to approach my situation rationally, as much as one could approach “where the fuck is the all-powerful witch who is supposed to be intimately co-habiting with me?” in a rational manner, I’d have concluded that Lilith had checked out. Either gotten out of me somehow or died when the Tomb of Endless Night nulled her magic, neither of which helped my situation.

An olive-skinned Rasha clamped his meaty hand over my mouth and nose and a too-familiar, scathing magic rode me like its prison bitch. No matter how many times this happened, I never got used to it, always bristled at the way it flared from his skin like B.O., snaked up my nostrils, and seeped through my lips.

I gagged, tasting motor oil, and tried to cough the magic out but ended up swallowing more of it.

“Do you know where the ring is?” the Rasha said.

His magic compelled me, and as much as I tried to fight it, I shook my head in answer.

“She’s lying!” Mandelbaum slammed his hand down on the metal table and I flinched against the straps.

“She can’t lie. My magic prevents that.”

“Then you didn’t give her enough.”

The taste of motor oil grew stronger. “Is Lilith connected to the Ring of Solomon?”

I pressed my lips together. These fuckers didn’t deserve to know a damn thing. But the harder I clamped my mouth shut, the more my eyeballs bulged out and my internal organs were buffeted like Dorothy’s house in the tornado. The word “yes” burst forth, mumbled against his palm.

Mandelbaum smirked. “I knew it.”

“Her skin sparked,” the Rasha said. “She’s burning through the suppressant again.”

“Double the dosage.”

“I’ve been giving her the maximum safe limit. Doubling it could kill her.”

The rabbi shrugged. “Then it kills her. But not before you get answers. Understood?”

The Rasha grabbed a leather strap from the cart and tied it around my upper arm. He reached for a syringe filled with blue liquid, but hesitated.

“I don’t have all day,” the rabbi ordered.

The Rasha shot the drug into my vein.

Bzzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzzzzzz. A segmented fly arm about the length of a javelin and studded with hundreds of tiny hairs, waved at the edge of my vision.

The rabbi and the Rasha wavered, replaced by two mad bestiary fusions of hooves, iridescent wings, and those horrible fly arms. One of them wore a fat gold hamsa ring, the other bulged grotesquely out of his gunmetal suit.

I locked my eyes onto the pitted, dirt-streaked ceiling swimming in and out of focus, repeating the mantra I’d clung to through this entire ordeal.

I am Nava Liron Katz. My parents are Dov and Shana Katz. Ari Katz is my twin. Leonie Hendricks is my best friend. Rohan Liam Mitra is my Snowflake.

And Rabbi Mandelbaum is going to die.

These visions weren’t real and they weren’t going to break me.

The Rasha poked me with a second syringe of the blue liquid and I braced myself for my mind to finally snap under this fresh new hell.

The trippiness didn’t intensify, but the pain did, slapping me hard. It ebbed and flowed in waves, every lull cruelly tricking me into believing this would end. My body bucked against the straps as I strained to curl into a fetal position, the drugs a boiling acid gnawing through my veins and into my bones with razor-sharp teeth.

I writhed, my broken whimpers echoing off the walls. Where was Lilith’s healing magic? It should have taken care of the stuff they’d been drugging me with.

“Enough,” Mandelbaum-beast said.

The Rasha-creature gave me another shot, this one a purple liquid. The pain mercifully abated and my entire body went limp.

“She pissed herself,” he said in a voice heavy with disgust.

I was so far past that on the humiliation scale that I didn’t have it in me to care.

Mandelbeast leaned over me, thick, twisted horns sprouting from his coiffed hair. “Where is the Ring of Solomon?”

“My precious. Where is my precious?” It was a pretty good Gollum impression.

“You have her memories.”

Wrong. I didn’t have Lilith’s memories and I had no idea why I was positive that she had some connection to the ring because Lilith was M.I.A.

I cast about inside me for any spark of magic, but as with the five thousand other times I’d checked, it was buried or gone.

“You know what they say,” I cackled. “If you remember 900 BCE, you weren’t there.” I focused somewhere to the left of the abomination the rabbi had become. My voice was raspy, my throat dry from the drugs. And the screaming. Really parched a girl.

The rabbi gripped my shoulders with his talons hard enough to leave new bruises. “She was alive when the ring was stolen. The Brotherhood doesn’t have it and neither do the demons or Hybris wouldn’t have asked me for it.”

Yeah, right before you double-crossed the demon.

Next to the cot they’d set up for me, the symbols etched into the Tomb of Endless Night floated off the iron sarcophagus and swirled around the room.

“I hear Hybris killed your boyfriend. What a waste. He used to be a good Rasha.” Mandelbaum’s words jolted me into looking at him and his shark smile despite myself.

“See now, if you’d said Sienna’s dark magic had killed—” I turned the catch in my voice into a cough. “—killed Rohan, I might have believed you. But Hybris? No way. Rohan would never let himself die in that fight. Not before destroying her. You can do better than that, Rabbi.”

“You’re right, I can.” He jerked his horns at his Rasha minion. “Get Lilith’s connection to the ring.”

Rasha-creature checked my straps.

How could he do this to another hunter? How could he follow this monster when his fellow Brothers were being held hostage? I’d be tearing the world apart to find them if I was capable of standing.

The Rasha moved out of my line of vision and turned on a tap.

When he returned with a damp towel, my first thought was that he was going to wipe me down. That maybe he’d been truly bothered by the mess on my pants, and even if he wasn’t bothered as badly as I had been morally, by the captivity and torture, that at the very least he’d play good cop and help me. That he’d stick it to his shitty boss and show me a small mitzvah.

Instead, he adjusted the table until it tilted backward, leaving my head lower than my feet, then placed the towel over my face.

And in that moment, I knew I’d been a fool to think that compassion existed in this chamber of horrors.

Glacial-cold water streamed over my face and panic exploded like cluster bombs under my skin, my gag reflex kicking in. I was suffocating, drowning.

Another part of my lucidity crumbled away.

I gathered my last vestiges of sanity, carefully bundling them up and moving them to my happy place. A mental sanctuary where I had magic, where Rohan, my brother, and my friends were safe, and where I got to snuff Mandelbaum out like a candle.

Then I lost consciousness. My system was still full of narcotics, so instead of a merciful void, I was tossed about in a watery, Kafkaesque nightmare.

If you’re alive, I stay alive. I reached out for Lilith’s sorrow-filled voice, but she wasn’t here to help me.

I came to, vomiting on my DSI shirt. This wasn’t what I’d been originally wearing. I had a fuzzy memory of being thrown the shirt along with a pair of sweats.

The towel had been removed from my face and the Rasha was pushing down on my stomach to expel the water.

Mandelbeast grimaced. “Get that disgusting smell off her.”

A freezing jet of water hit my hair courtesy of the Rasha giving me a thorough soaking from head-to-toe with a hose. As a cleaning aid it barely rated; however, if their intent was to make me shiver violently, then achievement unlocked.

“Could use lemon, but still fairly refreshing,” I croaked.

Rabbi Mandelbaum checked his expensive watch.

“Don’t let me keep you from anything.”

“I’ll be back.” He spun sharply on a hoof and walked out through the melting door that could have been featured in one of those Dali paintings that Ari loved so much.

“Sure thing, Terminator,” I said.

The Rasha-creature looked at me with a kaleidoscope of cold, dead eyes. Despite the fact that I was a lone female strapped down and still dripping from the waterboarding, he showed no interest. No mercy.

I didn’t register as a lifeform for him. Good. Being underestimated had always worked for me. I was bound, still tripping, and I faced a stronger, larger Rasha whose powers, unlike my own, worked just fine.

I could deal with those odds. I took a deep breath, came up with a plan, and then burst into ugly, snotty tears.

It didn’t require any great acting ability.

The Rasha told me to shut up, but I let my hysteria escalate until I was choking on my sobs.

He stomped over and leveled out the table. Couldn’t let me die before they were absolutely certain I didn’t know where the ring was. When I didn’t stop spasming, he freed the straps across my chest, his stiff insect hairs rasping against my bare hands.

I grabbed one of the syringes with the blue liquid from the push cart and jammed it into his right eye.

He reeled back with a shriek, his hands flailing.

I loosened the other two sets of straps holding me down and slid off the table, catching myself on the cold edge to stay upright since my legs were a tad rusty.

Gotta hand it to Mandelbaum, his arsenal of drugs was top notch. Like “squeaky-clean pop star with a secret addiction” bona fide shit. The Rasha wobbled and fell to the ground, whimpering and convulsing.

“Tiiiimbeer.” I commiserated with the poor guy. For half a second. Then I kicked him in the balls while he was down.

Ripping the leather tourniquet from my arm, I wrapped it around his neck, pulling as tightly as I could until I cut off his pained howl. I dragged his limp body across the room to the Tomb of Endless Night, batting at the air to move the dancing symbols away. Heaving and grunting, I shoved him in, throwing my weight against the door to wedge his muscled frame into the narrow interior, then slammed the sarcophagus shut.

Dabbing my sweaty brow with my sleeve, I peeked into the corridor that looped overhead like a crazy Escher drawing. Black goats were doing the macarena on two hooves. I beckoned one over, poking a finger through him as he shimmied and turned. Okay, not real.

These magic-suppressing drugs with the tripping balls side effects were insanely potent, but they didn’t last very long, which was why they’d kept doping me. Hopeful, I reached for my magic. Not even a spark.

Okay, I needed more time for my healing powers to kick in now that I wasn’t being dosed, but it wasn’t safe to hang around. I had a narrow window of opportunity to escape before someone discovered that I’d broken out. If I couldn’t portal, then there’d better be clearly marked exits.

Sadly, there were no signs on the pockmarked concrete walls painted baby-poo yellow that flaked off in eczema-like patches. Stale, recycled air held the faint tang of bleach. Either Mandelbaum was too cheap to pony up for electricity or he got off on the creepy vibe for his evil lair, because most of the fluorescent bulbs were burned out. The few that worked, flickered and buzzed.

Voices grew louder, nothing urgent, just a relaxed chatter in a mix of languages.

I pressed back into the room, peering out through the barely cracked-open door.

Several dozen men wearing kippahs streamed toward the far end of the corridor, blowing away the goats who looked indignant at not getting to finish their dance. Most of the men were armed with semi-automatics. Actually, I only assumed they were semi-automatics. Right now, they were giant, gleaming hot dogs on straps, so I was extrapolating.

There was a smattering of Rasha among the men, but most didn’t wear the hamsa ring. Mandelbaum must have brought in non-magic reinforcements.

They turned the corner and I crept after them. I didn’t even have to get too close, thanks to the shimmering rainbow air streams they left in their wake.

The corridor sloped gently down for a long stretch. I kept to the deepest shadows at the walls, still hugely exposed. The need to be away from Chez Mandelbaum itched my skin. As a tourist destination, it left a lot to be desired: the beds were metal, the food was intravenous, and the spa treatments weren’t so much exfoliating as PTSD-inducing.

After several more twists and turns, I came to a heavy wooden door studded with metal. I eased it open and barely refrained from whistling. This wasn’t just a room, it was an ode to all villainous HQs. Torches threw menacing shadows on the stone walls and the air was cool, like we were underground, though that might have been the faulty air conditioning because something dripped from vents in the ceiling into a small puddle next to my feet.

My clothes were still clammy and I started shivering again, doing my best to keep my chattering teeth from giving me away. I snuck closer, again sticking firmly to the shadows because there was a lot of firepower in here. I’d been shot once before and had crossed that experience firmly off my bucket list.

While I skulked, I counted heads. It was slow going because every so often their bodies stuttered like a frame on an old projector had gotten caught and I’d have to start again, but in the end, I totaled up about sixty men. Most remained fully human, with only the odd segmented limb or forked tongue cropping up.

Before me was a legit Jewish league of evildoers. My people had been victims in history so many times, that I guess it was nice to see us living up to all the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories?

Rabbi Mandelbaum, now mostly back to being human except for those horns, stood on a small raised platform at the far end of the chamber. Maybe I’d buy him a fake pair once I got out of here because the horns suited him. Brought out the batshit fanaticism in his eyes.

He raised his hands and the place fell silent.

“My friends.” He surveyed the crowd with a long dramatic pause. “I ask you to consider the phoenix. As that magical bird is eternal, so too is the Jewish nation.”

The flames in the torch closest to me flared and took the shape of the majestic bird.

Be a good hallucination and show me the way out of here.

The phoenix cawed mockingly at me. Yeah, well, back at ya. Had the bird been some kind of magic manifestation, I’d have drawn on it. Sadly, I was still a dud power-wise.

The rabbi droned on. “With its death and rebirth, the phoenix experiences bitter times of despair and soaring moments of triumph, as do the Jewish people. Our history is mired with petty, small-minded, fearful men trying to eradicate us.”

Takes one to know one.

I couldn’t dismiss him entirely though, because the rabbi was right. Going to synagogue on the High Holidays meant passing the security guards stationed there. It always made me so mad, because church-goers didn’t have to worry about being hurt or killed every time they visited their place of worship. Even our local Jewish Community Center had guards. At the same time, the rabbi was twisting our past to justify behaving exactly as those he disdained.

“But from the darkest of ashes,” he said, “the Jewish nation has been reborn time and time again. Always stronger and more committed to our existence. And this time, my Brotherhood will be at the forefront of that rebirth.”

A roar greeted his news.

What Brotherhood? The six guys who weren’t carrying guns?

“…and our friends on the Jerusalem City Council have come through for us. We have approval to build the Third Temple!”

Third Temple sounded like a second-rate Christian boy band but it also sounded vaguely familiar. I pressed through the remaining drugs to tease out the knowledge. Jerusalem was a powder keg at the best of times with Jews, Christians, and Muslims all laying claim to the city. One more temple, just like an additional church or mosque, would be like saying one group had more of a stake in the city than the other two, and it was sure to light that fuse and blow tensions sky high. And that was without the rabbi throwing demons into the mix.

A supernova simmered and exploded inside me, engulfing me and knocking the breath from my lungs. It devoured me, licking and lapping at the curve of my hip, the jut of my elbow, the crown of my head. I was a raging inferno, aching to burn his world down.

If only I had my magic. I wouldn’t be stuck here. I wouldn’t have been tortured. I could solve this problem right away, melting these assholes down like the wrath unleashed when the Nazis opened the ark in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Once, I would have been upset by all these people needing to die. Now, things were different. I’d let their fear nourish my soul and their pleas be a siren’s call that I’d dance to.

Soon, but not yet. To lose control here would mean exposing myself and that would get me killed. Fuck that. I wasn’t dying for this bullshit. I’d gotten over that idea twenty minutes into my first torture session and I certainly wasn’t going to cave to some tragic demise now.

Keeping my lips pressed tight, I clawed my way to a greater and greater control of the blaze inside me, icing my swirling fury with a fusion of panic and resolve until I’d locked the emotion down tight.

Rabbi Mandelbaum motioned for the men to quiet down.

“Have you found the rabbis?” a man called out.

“Yes. I’ve just received word that we know where those witches” —he practically spat the word— “imprisoned them. Plans are being made to storm the location.”

I’d heard enough. Dizzy, I felt my way along the wall back to the door. I had to get out. I had no idea where the exits were, could barely keep what little I knew of the floor plan straight in my head, and this was my one chance to escape. If I messed this up then I’d be thrown back into that room, strapped down, and I really would never see the light of day. My stomach turned and I stumbled down the corridor, colliding immediately with a set of rock-hard abs.

“Cazzo!”

My head jerked up.

Drio sneered down at me, a bruised and bloody Leonie caught in his grasp.

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 fucked up.”

“So, you come in swinging your dick 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 fucking 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 crack 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 dick. “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 dick?”

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 fucked 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.

That he hadn’t wanted to until me.

The closer we got to his bedroom, the more I slowed down, until I stopped dead.

“Nee?”

“Give me a minute.” I was running on fumes, my nerves sharpened to daggers, dipped in the memory of Rohan screaming in torment while engulfed in dark magic.

“Wait here.” Drio flash-stepped past me into the room.

“I’m fine.” I started after him but he’d already returned.

“This will work.” He held out the bracelet with the Om that Lily had given Rohan.

I laughed bitterly and walked back into the living room. “Trying to tell me something?”

He placed the bracelet in my hand, folding my fingers over it. “I’m not being a dick. He’s had this for a long time. It means a lot to him.”

He was right and the bracelet should have worked to determine Ro’s location, but I got nothing except the sensation of dead air. I tried and tried, clutching the bracelet so hard that my fingers turned white.

Leo finally pried the bracelet out of my hands. “He was hit by dark magic. You don’t know how that screwed things up in terms of trying to find him.”

“Sure. Leo, can I borrow your phone?”

“He won’t answer,” Drio said.

“Seriously?” Leo said.

“I’ve left him fifty messages. He’s my best friend. He wouldn’t—” Flushed, he stomped out onto the balcony.

The balcony where laughing and breathless in a crazy storm, Rohan had vowed that he’d always come back to me. And he would. He had to, and I had to keep believing that, putting my faith in that promise.

But what good was that promise when here I was and Rohan was nowhere to be found?

Leo handed me her cell. “Hey, you doing okay?”

I nodded and gave her a thumbs-up, unable to find my voice.

“I’m going to wash off this gunk. Let me know if you need anything.”

I turned the phone over and over, then steeled myself and called him.

My fear of finding out that Rohan’s phone was no longer in service was held in check by my steely refusal to be denied holding his calloused hand in mine, feeling his pulse slowing as he fell asleep tangled up with me, or hearing the gravely smoke of his voice.

His phone went straight to voicemail. “It’s Rohan. Leave a message.”

My hand curled around the device like I could capture his voice and store it in my heart.

“Rohan Liam Mitra, you come back to me right this minute. I love you and” —I dragged in a shaky breath— “you promised you’d never leave me, that you’d always come back. Well, I need you here because I can’t do this without you. I can’t exist without you. I love you. Come back to me. Please.”

Leo returned freshly scrubbed and in clean clothes. She took in my puzzled look. “We came here before the rescue to leave some stuff. Drio left messages for Rohan that this was our rendezvous point.”

“Ah.” My stomach rumbled. “Could you guys go get some food?”

It’s true that I was starving, but I needed a moment to catch my breath and figure out how everything had gone so wrong and what it would take to set it right.

Reluctantly, they agreed. Leo gave me her phone in case Rohan called back and they left on foot to a nearby sushi joint.

I eyed Ro’s liquor cabinet. If now wasn’t the perfect time to reacquaint myself with the joys of being blackout drunk, when was?

Two shots of premium-brand tequila later—my boyfriend did not stint on the amenities—I was feeling slightly less pain. No longer run-over-by-a-bullet-train agony, more thrown-off-a-rocky-cliff-and-hit-every-outcropping-on-the-way-down, Homer Simpson-style.

I inhaled the last of the trail mix that I’d found in Rohan’s cupboard. It was the healthy, tasteless kind without chocolate chips or sugary content, but at this point, food was food, and knowing Ro, it was sure to be high in protein and nutrients or some such crap. Leaning against the balcony railing, I slid Leo’s phone out of my pocket and dialed Ro’s number again.

“The mailbox you have reached is full.”

“Don’t retrieve your messages. See if I care.” It didn’t mean anything. People forgot to delete messages after they’d listened to them.

The ground rumbled, like a lion shaking itself awake, before all went still. Crickets went silent and even the faraway traffic seemed to hold its breath. The air warped nauseatingly, then shredded around me with a sibilant hiss that shivered down to my toes.

I jerked my head up, thinking—hoping—it was Rohan somehow returned to me.

But why would the universe give me my boyfriend when it could give me a hole that had been torn into the fabric of reality? An in-between place, one unseen by normal humans, sat like an overlay over the backyard, and it was here that the whirling, dizzying rupture was visible. An ugly gash separated the soft twilight of Los Angeles from the throbbing malevolence on the other side.

I dashed out of the house to check it out.

About two feet high and a foot wide, the rift glistened wetly with a thick Saran Wrap-like barrier stretched across it like a low-budget hymen. Low-Budget Hymen was totally going to be the name of my band, with the first single “Use Both Fingers.”

A pulsing line about three feet thick traversed the ground in either direction as far as the eye could see. Most of it was dark green but under the rift it was black. This was the ward line between earth and the demon realm, and the places where demons opened rifts acted like poison on it.

Look at me being a veritable font of knowledge.

A misshapen head slammed against the barrier, making a duck face with its warty lips. It was ripped away by a wizened claw and a beaked demon took its place, trying to pass through.

A flinty smile curved my lips and magic danced quicksilver over my skin. Killing was waaay better than booze.

On a scale of one to ten, this power was a five. It would have been more like a nine or ten on my original pre-Lilith magic spectrum, though only registering about a two on the scale of her full power. A damn good baseline, nonetheless.

I laughed, shockwave after electric shockwave rolling toward the tear. My magic felt richer and deeper, the silver dazzling like a star show. However, the barrier prevented me from killing the demon horde on the far side and the rift itself wouldn’t seal.

I slowly cranked the magic dial inside me higher, up to a seven.

The rift reached out for me, wanting me to feed it, its hunger insatiable. Its magic snapped into me like fish hooks gutting my inside and refusing to let go. I’d just escaped from Mandelbaum’s clutches, could I not get a break? The universe was a sadistic fuck.

There had to be a way to free myself that wasn’t the magic equivalent of a bear eating its leg to escape a trap. Could disengaging be as simple as sealing the rift?

I gritted my teeth, the tendons on my neck standing out, straining to repair the hole before one of the many demons birthed itself into my world. My only piece of luck was that it looked incredibly difficult for the spawn to pierce the translucent barrier. Their expressions contorted in agony, their high-pitched howls making my ears bleed as they attacked. Little wonder that demons who did cross through tended to hang around earth instead of going back and forth.

Brute force wasn’t the way to go. I switched from a pummeling to a healing magic, the silver changing to more of a pure white light.

The rift softened and began to deflate.

Three humanoid demons with leathery wings and hate emanating off them like stink contorted their way through the barrier, much like beautiful butterflies emerging from their chrysalises. Except hideous and afterbirthy.

I shrunk the rift to a speck and it winked out behind the three spawn, much to the other demons’ enraged—and abruptly cut-off—baying. The black and green ward line disappeared as well, leaving only the patchy, weed-choked lawn.

The spawn thudded to the ground in a semi-circle around me. One slashed out with a razor-sharp wing. I leaned back almost horizontal, the tip whooshing past my nose. Their skeletal frames were infused with a hot anger, their dark, malevolent eyes swiveling to track me. A talon swiped hot and fast, lacerating my rib cage.

Running my magic over the demon to my right, I searched for its kill spot. The demon kicked out at me with its powerful thighs. I ducked, but my reaction time was a hair too slow and the kick caught me under the chin. I tumbled into the dirt.

Time lost all meaning. The creatures’ growls, the dry grass snapping into flattened, powdery dust with each step, all was inaudible next to the harsh breaths ringing in my ears. The pain drilled holes in me, filling them with molten lava.

Steam rolled off my clothes, my wounds festering with a green pus that burned, but the demons failed to look any worse for wear.

I flared my magic to eight and was seized with a wild breathlessness. TV made wielding unholy amounts of magic look so easy, but I was locked down on a ride about to run off the rails with the emergency brake just out of reach.

My vision was tunneling, my ribs were bound by an iron vice, and my skin burned with a feverish intensity. The power hadn’t increased exponentially, I wasn’t anywhere close to Lilith’s full abilities, but my body was struggling. Did I just need time to recover from the torture, or given my death and resurrection, was I now overly-sensitive to magic use?

My heartbeat dropped out of rhythm. My heart had raced before out of fear or exertion, but never had it simply fallen away for a long terrifying moment. It was too vivid a reminder of dying.

I refused to ever feel that way again.

These demons were the A-Team; I’d never faced anything like them before. I’d killed demons all the time with my regular magic and yet I couldn’t get the upper hand even with my enhanced electric current. I reached inside me, coiling the magic up and snapping it out like a whip, but they dodged my assault with balletic grace.

My magic flared madly; I was on the verge of losing control. I grappled with it, dialing the power down notch by agonizing notch until, slick with sweat and limbs trembling, I was once more in the driver’s seat.

The trouble was, I didn’t have enough magic to fight them. I stomped down on the curl of fear in my belly. I was a witch and a demon hunter and I was going to nail these bastards. It couldn’t all end here. I had to save Ro. There was a world out there that needed me, and more importantly, I needed me.

My power sputtered out in a cascade of silver forked bolts.

Gathering every last drop of heightened electric magic left, I shaped it into a ball and hurled it at the demon closest to me, nailing him in the translucent membranes between his wing bones.

He winked out of existence. Yes! Take that, sucker.

The largest demon grabbed me by the scruff of my neck, jerking me backwards. I peered blearily past him through my eye that wasn’t swollen shut, up into the vast, overcast sky that was a gauzy net of shifting shadows.

“Ssssomeone wants to meet you. You’re coming with me.” His forked tongue flickered disturbingly close to my face.

“Your boss and I had an agreement,” said a smooth, English voice. “Lilith is mine.”

The newcomer stood on the side with my swollen eye, but he sounded like Malik. Great. Let my day be complete.

The demon holding me danced back a few steps. “You weren’t fast enough.”

Still in my blind spot, the newcomer killed my captor’s sidekick and did something to the demon holding me that made him crumple to my feet in a broken heap, all in a matter of seconds.

“That fast enough for you?” He stepped into my field of vision. Malik’s fitted light-weight shirt and pants spoke of money, but there was no tailoring that could hide the primal wrath that rolled off him.

The injured demon on the ground gooshed out some fluid that splooged over my feet. I dredged up enough magic to light up one hand and finish the bastard off.

“No,” Malik said. “We need a messenger.”

He knelt down, his hands on his knees and spoke in an oddly gentle voice, one that had the soft lull of a mesmerizing cobra that you knew would strike and despite that, found yourself leaning in toward. “Tell him that I’m doing this my way.”

The injured demon opened his mouth, but whatever he saw on the marid’s face made him snap it shut, bob his narrow head, and hobble off into the night.

Malik pushed to his feet and dusted off his pants.

Chest heaving, I stood firm, throwing out my best “confident witch with an endless supply of magic at her disposal” vibes.

“Nice eyepatch, me hearty,” I said.

Generally, in our previous encounters, Malik had presented a veneer of civilized behavior. That had been ripped away, leaving an ancient cunning in his left eye, his right now a mass of scar tissue under a black eyepatch.

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.