The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz #1)(28)

“There’s no librarian.” Rohan tapped his head. “You are your own librarian.”

Great. Initiates got a lifetime of mentoring in demonology but I was told to independent study my way through. “Right.”

I trolled the shelves, running my finger along the spines. Most of the books featured the same publisher’s imprint on their spine: the letters BD in white against a black square background. Made sense that the Brotherhood printed their material in-house. “How about a podcast?”

“No.”

“Cheat sheet?”

Rohan gave a slow, disbelieving shake of his head. “It’s called reading. Your commitment to apathy is impressive.”

I moved to the next bookshelf, tossing him a smile over my shoulder. “Why, Mr. Mitra, you say the sweetest things.”

In the window’s reflection, I caught Rohan massaging his temples. Taunting him was fun, however…“You’re wrong about my impressive commitment,” I said, turning to face him. “It’s not to apathy. You’ve had your entire life to learn this stuff. I’m not against reading. I’m against the amount of time I’d need to get up to speed. Time which, if demons are gunning for me? I don’t have.”

“Cheat sheets.” He looked glum.

“Twelve point Helvetica is fine. Start with the main bad guys, ranking from domain down through species. Or a Demons for Dummies book. With lots of pictures. That works too.”

He brightened. “We have that.” He jogged over to a far corner of the library.

I stared in amazement as he pulled out a fat primer entitled Most Common Demons and presented it to me. “That’s a kids’ book,” I said, frowning at the bright cover.

“Yup.” Rohan shoved it into my chest. I caught it with an unhappy thump. “None of our initiates are dummies,” he said, “but I’m guessing even you can keep up with a seven-year-old’s reading comprehension.” He patted my head.

Did people have weak spots? Or could I just aim for the actual heart with humans? I eyed Rohan, sizing him up.

Kane strolled into the library with a pile of books, whistling when he saw what I held. Seriously, did this guy ever wear proper clothes? “Hel-lo nightmares for days.” He dumped his books on a table, snatched mine out of my hands, and flipped through it. “This sucker frightened me out of my wits.”

I peered at the illustration. “It looks like an evil Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.”

His eyes lit up. “Exactly! It’s a kappa demon from Japan. I lived in terror of it coming after me.”

“Why? Some kind of connection to your heritage?”

He stared at me like I was stupid. “It sucks your entrails out through the ass. Do you know how scary that was to a chubby gay kid?” He gave an exaggerated shudder, handing the book back to me.

“I look forward to finding my own personal nightmare,” I said.

Speaking of Rohan, he rolled his eyes but before he could say anything, there was an unsettling high-pitched whistle from the woods out back.

Kane peered out the window. “Demon.”

I hugged the book to my chest. “Asmodeus?”

“Nope. That was the cry of the curupira.” Kane shot me an odd look. “Why would you think that?”

I sank into a chair, weak-kneed in relief. “You better go kill it.”

“Wrong pronoun, Lolita.” Rohan tugged me to my feet. “Show time.”





8





When my protests of “I’ve only been training for a couple of hours,” and “you should never meet a demon on an empty stomach,” failed to work, I went for Plan B and dug my heels into the grass in the backyard like a little kid.

Rohan hauled me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, ignoring all my pummeling until he’d stepped through a heavy iron door set into the back fence, at which point he dumped me on the ground.

Outside the wards.

I scrambled to my feet.

Rohan whistled some bird call and a moment later Baruch jogged out of the trees, a bruise blossoming on his cheekbone. He nodded when he saw me. “Good. Now you can show us what you did with the brother.”

“Huh?”

As if choreographed, he and Rohan stepped in sync to one side, right as a demon charged me with a chilling growl. Unlike the araculum, this demon was humanoid. Ish. About the height of your standard NBA player, his red eyes burned like glowing coals. Jagged fangs protruded from his fleshy lips and a matted black pelt covered his torso, but the most terrifying thing about him was his enormous cock. It jutted out erect, a non-bobbing zucchini of such knobby rigidity that I wouldn’t have been surprised if he swatted Mack trucks out of his path with it.

This time when I ran screaming, hopping tree roots, and stirring up piles of damp, decomposing leaves, I shot off wild blasts of electricity. My training had really taken.

“I wouldn’t,” Rohan called out. “He’ll just see you as prey.”

“Do what you did to the brother,” Baruch ordered.

I glanced over my shoulder at Penisaurus Rex. Hell, no. Having run in a wide circle back to my starting point, I beelined for Tree Trunk, determined to hide behind him. Yeah, right. As soon as I got within arm’s range, Baruch pushed me back into the demon’s path.