The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz #1)(60)

I blinked at the button I'd worried loose on my coat and sighed.

I gave them a moment once they'd left so that I wouldn't run into them outside before going to have breakfast all by my lonesome. Which turned out to be awesome when the sexy baker spent the next half hour flirting and plying me with pastry. By the time Drio texted me to come meet him and Rohan, my mood had improved considerably.

Rohan answered the door to his suite. His walk with Lily must have helped because he no longer looked like crap, the cuffs of his white shirt folded crisply back, with two undone buttons showing a V of dark skin. His worn jeans molded to the long lines of his legs. The sight of him in top form once more sent my blood frothing and churning, dark tentacles lashing hot inside me.

Stripping off my coat, I pulled a sketch of Louis XIV's sunburst that I'd printed out in the tiny hotel business center from a folder in my laptop bag. "If you recall," I said, handing it to Drio, "this was our first break. Samson King. Sun King. Just like Louis XIV. A possible connection."

"The snitch," Rohan said, not outing Leo as my source. "He'd heard a rumor that Samson had spent time in France. It was a potential link." 

"Yes. Since some demons have long lifespans." Rohan was being civil, I could, too. "I wondered if maybe Samson had hung out with Louis. Picked up some tips. But I got it all wrong." I picked up the next printout. This one of the black sun. "As you can see –"

Rohan snatched the paper out of my fingers.

"Gee, Mr. Mitra, I was doing my best clipboard impression and everything. Should I be more actual furniture, less office supply?" Nope. Apparently no civility on the menu today.

"Black sun. Occult symbol." He exhaled, a slow controlled breath. "I'm sorry for the furniture crack."

I waited but he didn't add any other items to that apology. I sat on the couch with an unhappy thump. "I don't buy your sincerity. Apology not accepted."

"What's it gonna take?"

I tapped my finger against my lip, thinking. "Get on your knees and grovel."

Drio smothered a laugh.

Rohan narrowed his eyes. "Never gonna happen."

"Fine. Forget it. Drio, tell Mr. Mitra that the black sun –"

"Nazi's co-opted it." Ignoring us both, Drio grabbed my laptop and started typing. "It was on that castle floor in," he peered at the screen, "Wewelsburg."

"Samson recently got that sun inked as a tattoo. He showed it to me the other night in response to seeing my sunburst. I said it looked like a swastika with too many arms. He didn't seem to care much for Nazis." I gnawed on my fingernail. "Something about his response bothered me. It wasn't a general dislike with their ideology. More deep-seated, intimate hate."

"Like they'd pissed him off. Personally," Rohan said.

I didn't want to acknowledge him but Drio looked like he'd brain me with the laptop if I kept this Kindergarten shit up. "Yeah."

"If Samson does have ties to both Versailles and the Nazis, it could be as more than a spectator," Drio said.

Rohan pointed at him. "Hitler and King Louis. Both with delusions of grandeur and plans of world domination." He went over to the mini bar and pulled three bottles of water out of the fridge, handing one to each of us.

I riffled through my notes. "Did you know that at the Palace of Versailles, aristocrats were expected to compete for the privilege of watching the king wake up, eat meals, and prepare for bed? Sound familiar?"

This was the type of envy-inducing humiliation King foisted on contestants on his reality show Live Like A King. All for the dubious honor of winning a position in his entourage. Bad enough contestants so willingly debased themselves, Rohan and Drio had tracked players and crew and found that they were exceedingly accident-prone. Fatally so.

"Samson mentored Louis," Rohan said. "We've been assuming the wrong way round."

Drio was already looking something up. "Louis chose the sun as his emblem to cultivate the image of an omniscient and infallible sun-king around whom the entire realm orbited. I'd say this is more than a potential link."

"I don't know if he tried this with any other empire builders." I unscrewed the water bottle cap. "Napoleon or Genghis Khan or Hannibal or whoever." The cold liquid eased the dryness in my throat.

"That brings us back to who Samson actually is." Drio typed as he spoke. "If Louis was his first attempt to control someone and be the power behind the throne, it might have taken him time to get strong enough to position himself."

"Where's he been since Hitler?" I asked.

"Defeat takes a toll," Rohan said, peering over Drio's shoulder at the screen, water bottle in hand, forgotten. "If Samson was behind the Nazi fascination with the occult, tying his own power to theirs, then the end of World War II would have been a huge blow. It might have taken him this long to bounce back."