Leo gave a dreamy sigh. "Letting his rock star fly free. I would totally tap that."
"You would have tapped that when you were thirteen. This is not news."
"Nava." Leo wasn't buying my stalling.
I twisted around to prop my feet against my headboard. "Lightning girl is here."
"I know you are. So?"
I gave a strangled laugh. "No, honey. The actual one."
Her sputter was gratifying. "Who is she?"
"A beautiful genius. Very nice."
"Shit. Total nightmare. Are they dating?"
"No. But there is definitely something between them. A tenderness. Which I don't want from him, but sistah, it's messing with me getting some."
Her "then you need to get back on that, beyatch," sounded even less believable.
I tucked my arm underneath my head, staring up at the ceiling. "Ever wish we could hide away until the sun explodes destroying all life as we know it?"
"Would we be hiding out with a lifetime supply of potato chips and vibrator batteries?" Leo asked.
"We could."
"Hmm, still no."
"Why not?" I said.
"Because we are socialized, highly functional human beings who don't hide."
"No, we're not."
Leo snorted her donkey-braying laugh. "Not even a little bit. Still. No hiding."
I sighed. "Fine. Everything good with you? For reals? Get your boy part fix yet?"
"Nope. Last night was all about the delights of girl bits."
"Sweet. Well, I better go prep for my meeting. Got some possible intel to follow up on."
"Good luck. Shmugs." She blew a loud smack into the phone. "Don't let the bastards get you down."
Damn, I loved my bestie. "Schmugs."
The second I hung up, I called Baruch back at the Vancouver chapter house. The top Rasha in terms of weapons and training, Baruch Ya'ari stood about six and half feet tall, with shoulder-length black hair and sharp blue eyes. Combined with the hemp bracelets he wore, he always reminded me of a surfer Special Ops guy.
Rasha weren't just hunters. Their duties involved everything from training initiates and designing weaponry like Baruch did, intelligence gathering on demons like Rohan and Drio did via the in-house intelligence department, or coding surveillance software and top secret databases like Kane.
Baruch had been assigned as my personal fighting instructor, a.k.a. the one with the best chance of quickly giving me moves to keep me alive. I adored him, even though he gave me enough bruises to warrant calling a helpline.
"Shalom."
I smiled at his Israeli accent rumbling over the line.
"Boker tov, Tree Trunk." Baruch bore my nickname for him with the same stoicism he handled everything. Well, everything that wasn't Ms. Clara, the person in charge of all Brotherhood administrative business in Canada. Rasha, rabbi, Executive whether living or visiting dealt with her. She also moonlighted as one of Vancouver's top dominatrixes. Mad whip skills.
Demons were drawn to instability, be it civil unrest or natural disasters. The fault lines along the west coast appealed to them, which was why years ago, Vancouver had founded a chapter. Since then, we'd become the main Canadian hub, overseen by Rabbi Abrams in theory and Ms. Clara in all the ways that counted.
"Tell me you have a plan for dealing with those photos," he said.
I scrunched up my face. "I do." Carry on as planned. "I also have a favor to ask. Can you please keep an eye on Ari until this job is over?"
Tree Trunk sighed. "I'm going back to Jerusalem," he said. "Back to HQ."
"You can't!"
"Maspik, Nava," he said gently. "I can't stay as your personal trainer either. The Brotherhood needs me."
My lip wobbled. I didn't mean to be a wuss, but for the past several weeks, Baruch, Rohan, Drio, and Kane had been my anchors in this funhouse I now called my life. Kane would be sticking around, since he was based out of Vancouver, and I'd be happy for Drio to move to an ice floe in the Arctic, but Baruch? I needed my Tree Trunk. I felt safer knowing he was around, guiding me.
You'd think that being a chosen demon hunter would be broadening my horizons. I felt like it was shrinking my world.
"I'll put Kane on it," he assured me.
Great. Babysitting Ari for yet another reason. If I didn't get Ari Rasha'd soon and all magicked up, I feared the two of them might end in a double homicide.
"Beseder?" he asked.
"Okay," I agreed. I thanked Baruch, making him promise to stay in touch. Tamping down any residual Tree Trunk sadness, I fired up my laptop. One quick call to room service to order a club sandwich, fries, and chocolate cake, since the Brotherhood was paying, and I got to work tracking down the significance, if any, of the black sun. Even without access to Demon Club's databases, the connections I found floored me.