The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz #1)(15)

I liked her already.

The rest of my day included last-minute trips to the mall and my parents' place to raid my closet for some Samson-attracting clothes, memorizing the list of demons and their various known traits to the best of my ability, then obsessively checking to see if the scientist had replied to my meeting request. 

She hadn't, so I decided to call Leo. My bestie answered the phone sounding more subdued than usual.

"Oh, no. Did your date with the soulful poet go badly?"

Leo gagged. "He had more estrogen than my last girlfriend. I can't be around guys who make me lactate."

"Sorry, pumpkin. Better luck next time."

"There's got to be a group of hot guys who are smart and funny."

"There is." I sorted through my underwear, putting the pairs coming with me into a pile. "They're all sleeping with other guys."

Leo sighed. "I should have been born a gay man."

"Yeah, but then I'd never have a shot with you."

"I like that you dream big. Okay," she said, sounding more cheerful, "gotta go play Switzerland and help broker a transaction between two clients." I didn't bother asking for details, even though I itched to go crash that party. Leo worked part-time as a P.I. with demon clientele. She used much of the info she gathered for good, being an informant to the Brotherhood, much like the Brotherhood used its David Security International front to gain access to high-powered players and secrets that otherwise might elude us.

I tossed my empty suitcase onto my bed. "Good luck and watch your back. I'm off to Prague tomorrow morning."

"That oughta be interesting."

"You have no idea." I filled her in on my hope that I'd soon have a way to get Ari inducted as Rasha. "Can you stay in touch with him while I'm gone? Maybe go out together?"

"Of course." I heard her car door slam. "So long as dickhead doesn't accompany us."

I tried a couple of combinations on the built-in lock before I got the sequence right and the suitcase fell open. "Dickhead is Ari's personal bodyguard right now so please be nice."

Kane and Leo had met while the Nava-guarding Rasha boys were suffering from demon-compelled memory loss about my existence. Had we any Men in Black memory-erasing tech, they'd have used it on Leo. But occasionally people did find out about us and it's not like the Brotherhood made them disappear. I didn't think. If they learned about Leo's half-goblin status though? They'd dust her in a heartbeat. It would be my death warrant, too.

Rohan was the one Rasha who knew the truth about Leo, and he was leaving her alone. For that, I'd be forever grateful.

"Gotta book," she said. "Schmugs."

"Schmugs," I replied. My chest got warm and gooey at her matter-of-fact usage of our good-bye, shortened from "Hugs, schmugs." Having Leo back in my life meant everything to me.

Packing took no time at all. I propped my suitcase by the door, casting around for something to distract me, too restless to sleep right now. Grabbing my phone, I scrolled through my music, then set it in my blue and silver bedside speaker dock. After my Achilles tendon snapped in high school on the verge of achieving my dream of tapping professionally, I'd quit dancing. Cold turkey, locked down that part of myself. It had taken becoming Rasha, and more specifically talking with Rohan about his own creative experiences to realize how miserable I'd been without tap in my life.

Kneeling on my fluffy area rug, I rummaged under my bed for the tap shoes that Rohan had brought over from my parents' house as a surprise. A gesture that I didn't want to examine too closely. Sliding my feet in, the worn soles fitting me like a second skin, I hit play. I could have chosen anything to dance to; old swing, modern jazz, pop, even salsa music worked, but right now I wanted Rohan.



       
         
       
        

Phrasing.

Snowflake's raspy growl filled the room, singing the lyrics of his first hit, "Toccata and Fugue." A stream of consciousness love song, it never failed to fill me with a wild recklessness, an electric flow dancing over my skin that had nothing to do with my newly acquired magic. I tried to stay in the present and not the memory of Rohan singing these lyrics to me in a park late at night a few weeks ago.

The girl with the lightning eyes and the boy with demons in his soul.

As freaked as I'd been at those lyrics, Rohan had practically swallowed his tongue before the second chorus. That didn't seem to stop me from obsessively listening to the song every time I danced these days, however.

Kicking the rug out of the way, I tapped a percussive counterpart rhythm, my heel stamps, open thirds, and five-count riffs landing with gunfire precision on the hardwood floor. A siren's call, the melody swayed through my body, making my blood sing.