The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz #1)(79)
So much for using my words. I tugged at my non-poisoned earlobe once, in our “I’ve got your back,” code.
His face creased in confusion. Then he tugged back, staring at his hand like he wasn’t sure why he’d done that.
I stopped my magic, catching him as he sagged. “Let’s get out of here.”
Asmodeus stepped into the room, slow clapping, and totally healed from our fight the other night. There were no signs of any of the wounds that Rohan and I had inflicted on him. Not even the slash across his throat. “Good job, catching the prisoner for me, Nava.” Once again, only his ogre head spoke, though he refrained from getting all Lust Master on me.
“As if, you–”
I froze at the look of hatred on Ari’s face. “Knew it,” he whispered. With that he was ripped out of my arms by the demonic pillow horde and marched away, leaving a couple dremla behind to help Asmodeus.
I faced the demon, jaw tight. Killing his spawn was nothing compared to what I planned to do in retaliation for putting that look on Ari’s face.
“So easily forgettable,” Asmodeus said. He scratched at the fur on his bull’s head, this encounter with me a minor irritant. Hot bovine stank wafted off him. “Your comrades, your own brother? None of them able to remember you.”
“Drop their compelled memory loss and their love of me will rush right back in,” I countered.
Asmodeus’ thick ogre lips drew together in a distorted expression of pity. “Don’t you realize how my compulsions function? I work with what people already want. I prefer to deal in lust, but I can affect any desire. I simply amp up that craving, maybe small, maybe buried deep down, but still burning hot and bright inside them. With the memory loss? All those people couldn’t wait to forget you. Even you know you shouldn’t be Rasha. That’s why you wanted to forget the joke of you as a hunter. The joke of your entire existence.”
His voice slithered through me, pulling down stone after stone in the wall of my self-confidence that I’d so carefully erected after my dreams went up with the snap of my Achilles. Exposing these bricks as hollow, plastic shells.
“No.” I barely choked the word out through the thickness in my throat.
“The Rasha don’t want you. Your brother doesn’t either. It’s your fault he didn’t get to take his rightful place.”
Shards of my heart cracked off. I clapped my hands over my ears, not wanting to hear the demon’s insidious words. Not wanting him to see my hands shake. Not wanting to hear the truth my own experience borne out. The Rasha wanting to forget me I could live with. It sucked, especially from Rohan, but I got it.
Ari, though? Asmodeus killing me over and over again couldn’t inflict as much hurt.
He laughed. The same laugh I’d heard in the supposedly empty hallway earlier when he’d also touched me. Creeped out, I skittered backwards.
“I was simply going to leave your brother’s body for you to find. But erasing you as his sister altogether? Having him think you’re one of us?” The demon hummed in glee. “You’ve been so entertaining in so many ways.”
Head bowed, my hands slid down the side of my head, my palms skimming over my ear lobes. The ongoing searing on my left side was a distant second to my broken heart. I flashed on Ari giving me our secret “got your back” twin code. Asmodeus wanted me devastated. Wanted me to lay down and die. But he’d failed to realize one very important point: even if Ari did hate me right now, he needed me. I wouldn’t stop having his back until I was dead.
I straightened up, beckoning the demon forward with my hand.
His three heads looked between each other in amusement. Bulls and rams should never look amused.
“My turn to be entertained. Gonna kill you now.” Pushing past all my exhaustion and pain, I dug deep for my anger. Letting my hatred of Asmodeus not rule me, but absolutely fuel me. My magic coated me in a bright blue glow, lightning bolts slithering over my skin like animated tattoos.
“Cute,” he said. “But you can’t take me on your own and your friends are,” he paused for effect, “busy.”
I fired a lightning bolt into his side. He didn’t get to walk away from doing this to my brother. To me. “Don’t be such a coward, Asmodeus.”
In the blink of an eye, he dropped what little civility he’d pretended to have. The monster that now faced me was primal, brutal, and very much a deadly prince of his realm. “As you wish.” He leapt at me, kicking me in the head.
Light exploded in my brain. If I was going to see stars, it better damn well be from the other kind of hard pounding.
I staggered back only to be caught by the throat with one enormous hand.
The more he squeezed, the harder my power flared up. My vision flickered, white spots dancing before my eyes. Blood seeped from my temple, mingling with my sweat. My inner voltage fluctuated wildly and my heart pounded so hard, I was amazed I didn’t crack my rib cage. I had to shut myself down, but since that would leave me powerless in a demon’s grasp, I chose to let the needle on my inner meter break and allow my magic voltage to flood me.
Asmodeus roared as I flared bright, releasing me from his grip. Gulping air in heaving breaths, I fell on my butt, my hands sliding in a thick, viscous goop.
I scrambled to my feet, darting away and using every iota of mental strength I had to bring my power levels down. My magic didn’t simply dissipate. The electricity bounced around my body before snaking out through the soles of my feet. It didn’t hurt though, so that was a step up.