The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz #1)(74)

Thank God, the drinks were here. "Was he a dark-haired charmer on the playground?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "He was a total brat. Such a tyrant if he didn't get his way."

"Yet he seems so easygoing, now," I remarked.

Lily clinked her glass to mine with a wry smile.

Over the next little while, I learned all kinds of things about Rohan Mitra. His favorite color was green and he preferred savory to sweet. He'd also been a huge D&D nerd. Probably had a constant hard-on getting to actually fight demons in clandestine situations. I finished another drink, the burn helping with Lily's walk down memory lane.

Lily swirled her straw around in her second rum and coke. "His middle name is Liam."

Rohan Liam Mitra. It had a nice ring to it. "Where did Liam come from?"

"His dad's best friend," she replied, crunching a piece of ice between her even white teeth. "Ro's godfather." I couldn't help wonder with Lily knowing all about his past, and me knowing the secret of him being Rasha, which one of us truly knew him? Or with all his inner demons, if anyone really did?

I was intrigued to learn that she hadn't been a big Fugue State Five fan either.

"Too emo for my tastes," she admitted. "Though he'd been writing his depressing poetry even when he was young and runty. He had a growth spurt at fourteen and suddenly he was ‘mysterious.'" Her eyes gleamed. "Girls found him quite attractive after that."

"‘Quite attractive' like panties in his locker?"

She giggled. "There were rumors."

Girls throwing themselves at him, what a surprise. That struck a little too close to home. This entire conversation, learning the mysteries of Rohan was a bit too fangirl, a bit too groupie for comfort. I brushed my shredded napkin into a pile.

Besides, one could only talk about a guy for so long. The conversation veered onto other topics. We discovered that we could both sing the Grease soundtrack by heart. I'd pegged her for good girl Sandy, but her favorite song on it surprisingly, was not "Hopelessly Devoted to You" but "Beauty School Dropout." Mine unsurprisingly was "There Are Worse Things I Could Do."

We bonded over sucking at our respective religions with Lily being a Hindu who never met a hamburger she didn't like, and me, the Jew, believing bacon was a food group.



       
         
       
        

Lily even explained a bit about geophysics and her specific research with lightning. She was sweet, smart, and as much a person of the light as that little girl I'd seen in the street this morning. I liked her.

She yawned, her hand flying up to her mouth. "Sorry. I should go. Another early morning at the conference tomorrow."

I signaled for the bill. "Yeah, I'm going to set."

"You act?"

Constantly. "Me? Ha, no. I'm watching Samson's chase sequence."

Her eyes bugged out of her head. "Samson King?!" She looked at me, envy written all over her face. "I'm hoping to meet him at the wrap party."

Of course she was going. "If Rohan can't wrangle you an intro, what good is he?"

"Yeah, but it's not the same as hanging out with him. You are the luckiest girl alive."

Oh, those deceptive appearances.



Even though my contact with Samson today would be limited since he'd be filming, I was still uneasy. I didn't know if Samson expected me as Lolita, client of interest, or Rasha, public enemy number one.

While I brushed my teeth, I checked the hotel phone hoping for a message from Dr. Gelman. I even checked my cell though she wouldn't risk calling it. I'd left her a message last night about turning the demon into a magnet and asking if she had any insights. She understood magic. Maybe she could explain why I'd suddenly acquired a new dimension to my power, one that none of the Rasha had told me to expect. I'd written everything down that I could remember about the fight to deconstruct it with her.

Even though I'd been pretty insistent about speaking with her, she hadn't called back. She was probably at the physics conference. A mounting feeling of dread hooked in between my shoulder blades. She'd been so skittish when we met at Café Louvre. I kneaded feeling into my fingertips, pulled on an extra pair of socks. Wormed into a sweater.

Preoccupied with concerns over her safety, I barely registered Rohan and Lily breakfasting together in the hotel restaurant.

I used the phone in the lobby to try her but once more it went straight to voice mail, so I left another message asking her to contact me via the reception desk here. I even looked up the conference, calling the contact number on the website and asking if there was any way to page her. There wasn't, but the person I spoke with informed me that Dr. Gelman was participating on a panel this morning. I thanked the woman for her help, somewhat relieved.