The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz #1)(80)

Asmodeus faced me, bits of his flesh blackened and smoking dropping to the ground with sickening thuds. A rat scurried out of the shadows, going to town on this all-it-could-eat demon buffet.

I dry-heaved.

Suddenly, the demon’s side went limp.

“You might want to start wearing shoes,” Rohan said to the demon. “Because those tendons of yours are baby-sensitive.” He reached down and hauled me to my feet, raking an intrigued eye over me. “Magic ink. Nice.”

Lightning bolts danced over my still-blue skin. “Took your time.”

One of dremla attached to Baruch like a barb, looking like it was trying to cuddle him to death. Baruch’s skin rippled. His eyes rolled back, showing the whites, before he let out a war cry, grabbed the demon by its arms, and ripped it in two.

I expected to be showered in fluff but instead this maggot-like creature fell wriggling to the floor, so I stomped it to gory smithereens. The remaining dremla fled.

Asmodeus regrouped, lashing out.

Baruch tossed me a pair of red ear plugs.

I popped them in and the world fell silent. Which was weird since I should have heard the sounds of the brutal and bloody fight we were engaged in–or Asmodeus using his voice compulsion on us.

His ogre face grew redder and redder as he tried, his features more and more twisted with fury. Drio grinned his unholy grin and mockingly tapped his ears.

The fight raged on. Magic continued to pour out of me with no problem, though my poor meatsack stayed upright through sheer will alone.

Earlier, Baruch had assigned us each a battle zone. A part of Asmodeus’ body to focus our attack on. Best case scenario, we’d notice him trying to protect the sweet spot. At the very least, we’d be weakening his body with strikes.

I’d been assigned the demon’s back. I wounded him. I even bloodied him but not enough to do real damage. I was tiring far faster than Asmodeus was. True for all of us. With his broken shoulder, Drio looked about ten seconds away from passing out.

Asmodeus had gotten in enough licks in that our blood splattered the floor like a Jackson Pollock painting.

Then Rohan managed to slice off one of the hardened scales on the demon’s chest. Asmodeus flinched. The tiniest movement but compared to his lack of reaction with the rest of our hits, fairly telling. As if we were Borg, connected by a hive mind, Baruch, Drio, Rohan, and I refocused all our magic on his chest. Drio and Rohan used their ax and blades respectively, Baruch weaved in to rip off scale edges in order to expose more vulnerable flesh, while I blasted any bit of skin uncovered.

That’s when Kane, sporting a nasty cut across his temple, hobbled in with Ari. He gave me a sheepish grin, resting Ari carefully against a pillar. Told you my brother wasn’t dead. Why wasn’t Kane jumping into the fight? I did a full-body scan to check if his injuries were more extensive than I could see, but that wasn’t it at all. He waited until we’d torn a wide strip of scales off Asmodeus’ torso. Kane swaggered up behind him and then, his skin iridescent purple with poison, he hugged the demon.

Asmodeus convulsed.

Kane said something to me but when I shook my head at him, unable to hear, motioned for me to pull out the ear plugs. I did.

He bowed low, with a flourishing arm. “I left you the good part. Care to do the honors?”

Chest heaving, I caught my breath enough to answer. “Hell, yeah. Hey, Asmodeus.”

The demon zeroed in on me, the poison rippling through his shriveling frame and tight pain etched across his three faces. His ram’s head gave a wounded bleat as he unsuccessfully attempted to protect his right pec. The sweet spot.

I shot him the finger, a perfect forked bolt shooting off that digit to bullseye him. “See who’s forgotten now, bitch,” I crowed.

Asmodeus fell apart into puzzle pieces, all of him winking out of oblivion with a sucking noise.

It was over.

The lightning bolts disappeared from my skin as I powered down from blue to my usual Snow White pale, though I still reeked of electricity. Despite my bleeding, my bruising, my burned ear, and my bone-deep exhaustion, the knot in my stomach overrode everything else. “Tell me you remember me.”

Drio eyed me with distaste. “Sì. I like you even less now.” Keeping his shoulder more or less in place with his other hand, he strode out.

“One thing going right in my day,” I called out after him.

Still all poisonous, Kane blew me a huge kiss with a “Hola, babyslay.” He toed at the floor. “I’ll get the sodium peroxide mix to scour off our blood. Don’t want demons getting hold of it.” Especially not if they used it to take down our wards.

Baruch gave me a proud eye blink.

“Awfully sweet of you, Tree Trunk,” I said as they hurried off.

Rohan didn’t say much one way or the other. He shot me an inscrutable look and left.

Then there were two.

“Hey, Ace.” I slung my arm over his shoulder. Please let Ari remember he comes as a matched set.

“Hey, Nee.” Yay! “Sorry for the whole trying to kill you thing.”

“No problem.” My grip on him tightened. “But do it again and I’ll stab you in the tits.”

He mussed my hair with more noogie than fondness. “Like you could.”

“I so could.”

Ari laughed then pressed his hand to his side. He looked like a human punching bag and needed to rest, as did I.