The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz #1)(12)

Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves were built into the other three walls, the higher shelves accessed via rolling ladders. The "old boys' network" decor was evident in the leather club chairs, love seat, and coffee table grouped by the Persian carpets in the reading area.

The room was a librarian's wet dream, filled with every type of book on demons imaginable. Many of the books sported the same publisher's imprint of the white letters BD against a black square. If you were going to keep demonic activity a secret, it made sense to have an in-house printer to keep a lid on how information was disseminated.

The library was woefully light on fiction, though. I kept hoping the Brotherhood would spring my own personal Giles on me, but sadly that had not yet come to pass. Buffy had lied big time about the perks of being chosen.

I dropped into a chair. "What's this?" I pulled a highlighted folder over.

"It rules out all the types of demons that Samson isn't," Rohan said. "Either because that demon behavior doesn't fit his M.O. –"

"Like lust," I said, flipping the file open to peruse the columns of densely-typed demon species.

"Like lust," Rohan agreed. "He's not going to be a bottom feeder, like a vral either, acting on base drives."

"Too high a level of intelligence," Drio said.

"He's a master manipulator," I agreed. "He can glamour himself to look human as well." I tapped the folder. "Does this list take that into account?" 

Rohan seemed pleased I'd thought of it and even Drio nodded in acknowledgment. "It does." Rohan looked around the library. "We're still left with endless possibilities but ruling these types out helps."

"A lot of things to investigate then." I ticked the list off my fingers. "Name. Unique or a type." As in a one-of-a-kind demon or part of a species. "The specifics and timeline of his master plan. Find someone willing to say word one against him."

"That collective silence is a testament to his abilities," Drio said. "Evelyn didn't crack once."

Evelyn had been Samson's make-up artist. I'd suggested checking her out since actors spent so much time in make-up and she might have known something. Drio had outed her as a kumiho demon, suspected of using her illusionist abilities to help maintain Samson's human appearance.

Since Samson was constantly in the public eye, and maintaining glamours took energy, his having someone to assist him had seemed a reasonable assumption. Even though Drio had given himself a lot of leeway to get answers out of her –he didn't rape demons but he did love his torture –she didn't succumb to his persuasive ways.

And to think that Mandelbutt had made me undergo a psych eval to determine my suitability as Rasha. The Hebrew word for wicked, "Rasha" more literally meant one who departs from the path and is lost. A reminder from David about how close we hunters were to darkness.

I eyed Drio. Some of us closer than others.

"Any sense that Samson is suspicious of her disappearance?" Rohan asked.

"No." Drio swung his feet onto the one clear corner of the table. "According to his buddies, he's pissed that ‘she's pulled this shit yet again.'" He scanned a page in the file closest to him. "His new make-up artist checks out as human."

"Hold on." That wasn't something you said about an underling you didn't care lived or died. Maybe Leo was right and we Rasha had to cut the black-and-white thinking out. "What if Evelyn stayed silent because she was in love?"

Drio scoffed at the idea.

"Love is just as powerful as terror," I told him. "Maybe more so." Demons did love. Perhaps not as we did but something similar drove them. I'd learned that firsthand when Asmodeus came after me for killing two of his spawn. "‘This shit' she's pulling, getting mad at him about something and leaving? That sounds like jilted lover behavior."

"Do we have any intel on Evelyn and Samson having been partnered up before now?" Rohan asked Drio. "Based on what little we have on him before he hit big in Hollywood?"

"No. But … " Drio tilted his head, studying me as if trying to recall something. "You had me ask her if Samson had spent time in France."

"Yeah. In Versailles at the court of Louis XIV." Louis had called himself the Sun King. Samson meant sun. Sun. King. The similarity was worth pursuing, especially since some demons lived long lives. "Louis wanted to take over the world. Samson could have gotten ideas from him and maybe the location was a clue to Samson's demon identity."

"Yeah, but the French." He pointed at a green folder. "The stapled report."