The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz #1)(33)

It was time to take my training to a new level.

Baruch showed up at my house moments later in a warded-up, reinforced Hummer. Not that you could tell from looking at it. Another benefit of the Brotherhood having a fuckton of cash.

I slumped on the leather passenger seat, stifling a yawn. “Why are you pulling chauffeur duty?”

“Asmodeus is intensifying his efforts to find out who killed his kids.” He shrugged out of his sweater, tossing it into the backseat. Ragged gashes peeped above the neckline of his shirt.

I stuttered out a harsh breath. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Baruch patted my head. Oddly, coming from him, this gesture felt sweet and did not inspire me to rip his condescending hand off. “I won’t let the demon get you. You’re my sister now.”

Aww. My jacked-up insides went gooey. The lack of any demons waiting to ambush us when we pulled up to the gate helped too.

Rohan bounded down the stairs as I dumped my jacket and shoes in the foyer. Our few encounters had been decidedly tense since our spat in the kitchen. One look at me and he sighed. “Baruch told you.”

“Yup.”

He placed a hand on my shoulder. “He’ll have to get through me first.” Sure, because he didn’t want to hear the Executive bitch about it if I died before they’d decided on my fate.

I shook him off. “Thanks. Better find Tree Trunk.”

Rohan searched my face, then with a nod, stepped aside to let me go.

Ms. Clara ambushed me the moment I hit the ground floor, beckoning me over. “Well, don’t just stand there.”

“Better go,” Baruch said from behind me. “Clara gets a hard-on for signatures.”

She narrowed her baby blues on him. “I heard that, Mr. Ya’ari.” She clapped her hands. “Chop. Chop.” Tiny, breathy, and steel-spined. No way was I disobeying her.

I scurried down the hall past the conference room and a couple smaller meeting rooms/floating offices for Rasha or Executive in town, dragging Baruch with me. Rather, he let himself be dragged. “Since when are you given permission to call her Clara?” I asked in a low voice, as Ms. Clara turned into her office. “Are you and her…?” I was about to make a lewd motion but the look on his face had me rethink that. “Are you a thing?”

He didn’t answer me. One more item to add to my list of mysteries about these guys.

Her office was meticulous. Tasteful photographic prints of the city, from towering Douglas fir in Pacific Spirit Park to neon signs in Chinatown framed her white walls. Three normal humans would have been comfortable in the small space. With Tree Trunk in there, our fit was positively snug.

Ms. Clara sat down in her black and brushed steel Aeron chair that matched her desk. She twisted the large monitor out of the way, pushing a thick file with my name typed on the tab toward me. “This covers the basics of your employment.”

Like my severance pay body bag?

I flipped the file open. “Hang on. I’ve been here since Monday. It’s Thursday and you’re just getting around to having me fill out the paperwork now?” That seemed oddly lax for her. “Was the Brotherhood hoping I wouldn’t last the week so they wouldn’t have to bother processing me?”

Ms. Clara selected a pen from the cup on her desk with intense concentration while Baruch just sat there, arms crossed, poker faced.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I didn’t even apologize at Ms. Clara’s admonishing glance.

“I’ll need your phone and laptop,” she said, handing me the pen. “Your data will be transferred over to encrypted models.” Ari had been given his first encrypted phone from Demon Club when he was fifteen. I knew how this worked.

I signed about ten times, my writing furious scrawls before I was calm enough to speak. “You mean you’re going to track me. Glad to know I’ve earned that minimal protection.”

“Enough.” Baruch’s quiet command defused the temper tantrum I wanted to throw.

Ari. Ari. Ari. I set the mantra to loop in my head. “The phone is upstairs in my bag. I’ll bring in the laptop tomorrow.”

Ms. Clara leaned across the desk to tap a signature I’d missed. “Good. Our tracking program ups the odds of finding you should you run into trouble. Twenty-four hours of inactivity and the Brotherhood is alerted to its last known location. Same if it gets destroyed.”

Much as I loathed the idea of Big Brotherhood keeping tabs on my every move, I wasn’t about to argue with something that could save my skin.

Ms. Clara wasn’t kidding about the paperwork. Forget chosen one crap. I’d joined the mother of all corporations. My hand started cramping up from the sheer number of signatures and forms to fill out, like the swearing to secrecy shit. Damn, I hadn’t been bound by any oaths yet when I’d talked to Rohan in the library. “I don’t get it. You’re the housekeeper and clerical worker?”

Baruch guffawed.

Ms. Clara stilled, looking up from where she was initialing a form. “Housekeeper? Wherever did you get that idea?”

I edged back on the seat. Her tone was kind of scary and she knew how to use a whip. “I asked who cleaned the house.” Leaving who I asked purposefully vague since I wasn’t about to sell Kane out to a woman who could inflict thirty lashes. “And was told you took care of it. Plus, you made cookies.”