The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz #1)(38)

I’d filled the book with color-coded sticky tabs and a growing pile of notes lay on my lap. While I loved technology, when it came to note taking, longhand was my preference. Something about the act of writing the information down instead of typing it helped me remember it better.

Ari poked his head in, a bowl of steaming chicken soup in one hand.

I inhaled deeply. “There better be matzoh balls in that.” The fluffy Jewish dumplings were, in my opinion, the best thing to come out of my religion. Except maybe that naked photo of Adam Levine in his all his tatted-up glory.

“Like you even have to ask.” He placed the bowl on my bedside table.

I eyed it, noting Mom had stuffed four giant matzoh balls in it plus put in extra carrot slivers. She must really have been freaked out by my appearance to give me the deluxe soup treatment.

Not wanting my demon book or notes to get accidentally soupified, I moved everything over to one side of my bed. The pillows behind me were rearranged to optimize my eating position, then I picked up the warm bowl and dug in. I know the soup wasn’t literally magic, but it was soul-soothing. I sighed happily, the hot broth filling my belly. There was an art to matzoh ball making. With some people, it was like eating cannonballs, but Mom’s melted in my mouth.

“I like big balls and I cannot lie,” I sang around a mouthful.

“What set you off?” Ari regarded me from his usual spot at the foot of my bed, where he sat cross legged.

“What do you know about a Rasha called Drio?”

Ari shrugged. “Don’t know him. Why?”

“He has it in for me. Things were said and he got me alone and…” I shivered remembering the aggressive dislike pouring off him. I chopped my remaining balls into bits. “I freaked out. The curupira was scary too, but when you’re female, a threatening human male taps into an entirely different kind of fear.” I met Ari’s eyes and he nodded in understanding. “My power went haywire. Then the chest pains kicked in and bam! Defibrillation.”

He bunched up my comforter in his fists.

The remaining soup was gone before I knew it, my spoon hitting the bottom with a clang. I peered into the bowl, as if staring might make a second helping appear. Sadly, no. Placing it on the night table beside me, I stroked my finger over my heart. “Ms. Clara said something about the cost of magic. Is this mine? Do I run the risk of dying every time I access my power?”

“You’re not going to die,” he said.

“You’re avoiding my question. Tell me, because I don’t have time to read my way through that library.”

Ari toyed with the edge of my stack of notes. “She’s right about the cost. But ninety-nine percent of the time, the only thing you’ll feel is tired. Craving those electrolytes.”

“And the one percent?” I asked.

Ari hesitated.

“Don’t sugarcoat it.” I grabbed my pen, on the verge of rolling off my mattress.

He nodded reluctantly. “If you draw on the power for too long, or become agitated to the point where it controls you instead of the other way around? Yeah. It could kill you. In your case, via heart attack it seems.”

I absorbed that, rearranging my pillows to face Ari. “Then I have to control it. Now that I know it can happen and why, I won’t let the situation get away from me again.”

“Just like that? Sheer will power?”

“Do you doubt me?”

My brother regarded me steadily before shaking his head. “What was it like training with Baruch?” he asked.

“You looooove him.” I made a kissy noise.

Ari raised his hands in tickle formation. “Keep talking, Katz. It’ll end in tears and pee.”

I threw a pillow at him that he caught one-handed. “He’s amazing,” I said. “He knows how to both motivate me and push me.”

“He breaks down battles looking for ways to improve our–their–odds.” Ari stumbled over the pronoun but caught himself. I kept my mouth shut. “Not to mention his inventions,” he said.

“Yeah, what was that thing you mentioned the first night?”

“The Stinger.” Ari’s face lit up. “Baruch found a way to stabilize demon secretions in a chemical compound that worked on the neural system of most demons to temporarily paralyze them. He dipped needle tips in the liquid then he designed a wrist holder that let the wearer flick the weapon at the target.”

My eyebrows rose. “Why don’t all Rasha wear them then?”

“Once you take the secretion from this particular demon, it dies. Kind of like a bee with its stinger. Which would be fine since the only good demon is a dead demon, but there aren’t a lot of this breed so Stingers are pretty rare.”

“Wow. Tell me about Kane.” My sneaky segue failed to catch him off-guard.

Ari spread his hands wide. Totally nonplussed. “What do you want to know?”

“All that delightful antagonism back there? Did you screw him?”

“He trained me for a while.”

“Knowing you, that’s not even a euphemism,” I said.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to discuss your colleagues’ sex lives.”

I shot him an incredulous look. “Of course it’s not appropriate. Why do you think everyone does it?”