The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz #1)(73)

“Even though Ari wasn’t Rasha…” Kane trailed off.

“He was still a Brother.” Really, Baruch? Because he wasn’t when I’d been pleading my case to get Ari’s initiate status confirmed. Bogus death revisionist history.

Not that Ari was dead. Still, I’d had it with these guys.

“Ms. Clara tapped Montague’s phone for GPS inactivity,” Rohan said. “We’ve got his location.”

I didn’t stick around to hear more. Five minutes later, I was hiding on the floor of the cramped backseat of Rohan’s Shelby, curled tight into a ball and silent as a mouse, tagging along to go confront our rogue Rasha. Rohan leadfooted it to our destination, but despite being tossed around, I didn’t make a sound.

I gave him some time after he cut the engine to get inside wherever we were before unfolding my stiff joints and scrambling out of the car. I was back in the Motel Shangri-Lola parking lot, site of my reunion with Leo last night. “Fuuuck!” I kicked at the car tire.

Rohan grabbed me by the waist. “How the hell did you get free?”

“I want first crack to see what he knows about Ari.” I jerked free. “Room 205.”

Rohan stepped around to face me, a dangerous flicker in his icy eyes. “You know this, how?”

I opened my mouth, then snapped it shut, not having a lie ready. If I said I’d met the snitch here, he’d demand to meet him. Her. I would too if I was Rohan. It was an awfully big coincidence on the face of things and I’d need to find out what led Leo to this case. But she was not the bad guy here.

Rohan pinned me against the hood, the warmth of the engine against my back at odds with the cool blade along his forearm pressed across my throat. “Explain.”

I swallowed. “You wouldn’t kill a fellow Rasha.”

“If this alleged Rasha posed a larger threat to the Brotherhood? Try me.” He looked a tad too willing for me to take him up on his offer.

“I met an informant here last night. A demon informant.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Call him.”

I jutted out my chin. “No.”

“I’m sorry?” Despite the barely suppressed fury in his voice, the blade wasn’t hurting me.

Yet.

Though the stress of the situation had brought my headache back like the cast of Stomp had set up shop in my skull. Screwing up my face, I fumbled in my pocket for the pills, holding them blindly out to Rohan.

He took the bottle, releasing me to pop the cap.

I slumped over the hood, my fingertips pressed to my throat but there wasn’t any bruising.

Rohan hooked an elbow under me to pull me up. He probed my black eye. “Where’s the demon that did that to you?”

“Dead,” I said viciously, jerking away from his touch. He’d been gentle but it still hurt.

“Good. He’s involved with Katz’s death how?” That question would have been brutal to hear spoken aloud if I wasn’t sure that Ari lived.

“His abduction,” I corrected.

Rohan tilted his head in acknowledgment. “His abduction.”

“I’m not sure.” I described the accident. “That’s how I know it was Asmodeus. He’s behind your memory loss, too.” I pointed to the pills. “Can I have?”

“You shouldn’t need these.”

“Tell that to my head.”

“How many have you taken already?” Rohan pressed a tablet into my palm.

“I’m a good time on over-the-counter-meds.”

“Expired meds.”

I held out my hand for the bottle. “Aren’t expiry dates just a suggestion?”

“Surprisingly, no.” Rohan handed back the bottle, tugging on my ring one more time like he couldn’t believe I was actually Rasha. “Ari really is your twin?”

“I swear it with every fiber of my being.” I infused my words with as much sincerity as I could and while Rohan studied me, as if weighing their truth, he nodded, convinced. About my sibling connection at least.

Though he shot me one more hard look before stalking off across the parking lot. Gravel crunched under his feet. He still had the slightest limp, courtesy of his earlier injury. “Why do I get the feeling you are all kinds of trouble?”

I scurried after him. “Beats me.”

The front desk was unmanned, just like in my first visit, though I did hear a tinny TV set playing some soap opera in a room off back.

Rohan pushed me in front of him. “Lead the way.”

Lola didn’t reek of tuna fish this time, which was a good thing, but the many oddly colored stains on the cheap beige carpeting running the length of the hallways seemed more pronounced today. The walls were too closed in, the dingy green brocade wallpaper exuding wrongness, though maybe that was me projecting.

It was a good thing that housekeeping was so lax. And that magnetic key cards were an unknown technology in this dump, allowing Rohan to pick the lock. He shouldered open the door, both of us flinging our arms over our noses at the stench. Not from the body. There wasn’t enough of Montague left on the bed to stink: several gnawed-on bones, a curled-up strip of skin hanging off the bed like a discarded towel, and a brownish red squishy that might have been part of an intestine. No, the foul stench came from the giant pile of demon cat piss on a wadded up section of bedding. The creature had soaked half the mattress through with its ungodly urination.