The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz #1)(8)

Toxic to humans, too. I couldn't touch him until he'd showered.

"What about the pregnant woman?"

"She thought it was some crazy person attacking. Ari and I distracted the demon enough for the breeder to get into her minivan and bolt." Kane took a steadying breath, clearly trying to get his anger under control. "I can't keep babysitting him."

"I know." My stomach knotted itself up. Ever since Ari had been abducted and tortured by a powerful demon a few weeks back, my heroically-inclined twin had become a one-man, monster-slaying vigilante. Sure, he'd trained his whole life for this, but since his Rasha ceremony had gone horribly wrong –inducting me instead of him in the surprise of the century –he hadn't yet been officially made a hunter and therefore, didn't have any magic power. Without that magic, Ari could wound but not kill.

Though he could piss the demons off enough to end up a tragic statistic himself.

In a rare display of cold calculation, my brother was exploiting Kane's feelings for him, dysfunctional as they were. With or without backup, Ari wasn't stopping and Kane was able to make the killing strikes. Payback had twisted my usually rational twin and I was terrified for his well-being.

Kane stomped up the stairs.

I rubbed my temples, sympathetic to Kane's frustration.

"Navela." Rabbi Abrams, Ari's mentor for his entire life, touched my shoulder.

"You heard Kane?" 

He nodded, motioning me into the kitchen. Rain hit the windows, wind scattering leaves off the trees.

I took a seat at the island, knowing from previous conversations that he'd speak in his own time. True to form, the rabbi boiled water for his pot of Darjeeling in silence.

The rabbi reached for a large mug. Slowly. No surprise since the guy was ancient. More wrinkles than anything else, he was clad in one of his many black suits, a kippah perched on his thinning white hair. He'd trimmed his beard, which was good since it had been straying into ZZ Top territory.

The only thing that ever seemed to radically change about Rabbi Abrams was his scent, ranging from mothballs to lavender and today …  I surreptitiously sniffed him. Lemon candy drops.

"Ready for Prague?" he asked.

"You bet." Ever my helpful self, I retrieved the honey kept in his special cabinet of "rabbi-only" cups, kettle, and kosher tea supplies.

He raised a shaggy eyebrow at me. I was growing on him.

"My mitzvah for the day," I said, referring to the Hebrew word for a good deed. Like certain Hebrew words, it probably had some other literal meaning.

The kettle clicked off. Rabbi Abrams poured the hot water over the tea diffuser in his cup, his hands strong and steady despite his age. "A mitzvah should not come with expectation of reciprocity."

"Then consider my next question totally unrelated. When will you be inducting Ari?"

After a ton of begging and my capitulation to mild blackmail, Rabbi Abrams had confirmed that yes, Ari did indeed still have initiate status. Thing is, re-running the traditional induction ceremony on Ari after I'd been inducted hadn't worked. That's why the Brotherhood believed they'd made a mistake about Ari's status in the first place. With each passing day that my brother remained an initiate and not a full Rasha, the greater the risk that Ari got seriously hurt.

I was worried that my existence had screwed things up, magically speaking, and now the Brotherhood had no clue how to make my twin a hunter.

I leaned on the counter fidgeting, but the rabbi waited for his tea to steep before answering me. "I am not sure that official permission to try alternate methods of inducting Ari as Rasha will be forthcoming," he said.

"You're picking your words rather carefully there." I frowned. "Please. Be straight with me. Did you ask the Executive?"

"It would not be a good idea at this time to seek authorization on this matter." He blew on the steaming liquid before taking a sip.

Clamping my lips shut against my first impulse to shout, "Why the fuck not?" I took a deep breath, forcing myself to lay out my argument in a calm, logical form. "Ari won't be deterred and this won't end well."

The rabbi took another sip. "There is someone I want you to meet in Prague."

Huh? "Who?"

"Dr. Esther Gelman. She's attending an environmental physics conference there." He waved at the miscellaneous drawer across the room. "Get me a pen."

Biddable me, I did as I was told.

He scribbled down Dr. Gelman's name and email but held on to the paper a moment longer. "Send her this message. ‘Golem. Alea iacta est.'" He added that to the paper.

I took it from him. "What does it mean?"

"‘The die is cast.' Request a meeting. Do not let her say no."