The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz #1)(81)

I grabbed him in a hug, practically squeezing the life out of him with my tears falling against his neck. He returned it, just as fiercely. Just as choked up. I wanted to ask if this meant we were okay or… not. But I wasn’t that brave. I’d do it after I got his initiate status confirmed.

I disengaged with a sniff. “Come on,” I said and my brother and I trekked out of the darkness and back into the moonlight.

Together.





22





By Sunday, we’d been moved to a new chapter house already fully operational. We could have re-warded the old place but once a ward had been taken down, subsequent wardings were never as strong as the original. Rather than risk vulnerability, the Brotherhood had opted to move us.

The new Demon Club was identical to our previous one, aside from being situated on more land. When I commented on the fact that the Brotherhood could have gone for something different, say a twenty-first century design, Rabbi Abrams answered, “Change is not always a good thing.” With a pointed look at me.

Message received, Rabbi.

It was a week since I’d become Rasha, and while my life was totally different, it was also infuriatingly the same. Asmodeus going after Ari wasn’t enough to shift the Brotherhood’s position, nor was me helping take the demon down. When I’d broached the subject yet again with Rabbi Abrams, he’d simply informed me that killing demons was my job and that the Brotherhood wouldn’t look kindly upon me using it as some sort of bargaining chip.

Rohan and Drio were equally frustrated, since even with Drio torturing Evelyn to the best of his ability, she hadn’t cracked. Now she was dead and they were no closer to getting into Samson’s inner circle. From the snatches I heard around Demon Club, the Executive was not happy.

Meantime, Ari had been sent with us to keep an eye on his recovery in the first crucial forty-eight hour period. Over the next few days, I spent most of my time draped in a chair beside his bed, watching him sleep. Well, watching him thrash under the covers.

While he healed, I did too. Not my physical self: that happened pretty quickly. No, I needed time to get over my hurt and anger that Ari had wanted to forget me. I wasn’t a saint. I nursed my grudge and then I got over it.

It wasn’t until the following Wednesday that Ari sat up, bitching that he wanted proper food not broth, and looking, on the outside at least, somewhat healed. I brought him chicken noodle soup, filled with chunky pieces of meat.

Ari sat up and took the bowl, eyeing me warily. “Are you going to mother me?”

I shook my head. “After everything that happened, do you still want to be Rasha?”

Ari swallowed a spoonful. “It’s not possible. The ceremony didn’t work. That means that they were wrong about me from the get-go. You were always the initiate, not me.”

The inconsistency made no sense. Besides, he was a natural at this. All these years, he’d carried the quiet confidence of becoming Rasha in his bones. No mistake.

“Not my question.”

Ari’s shoulders set in a tense line as he answered. “Yes.” His eyes glittered dangerously, a contrast to the purple bruising on his face.

“For revenge?”

“Does it matter?”

Absolutely, because that attitude would get him killed faster than any stupid hero impulse. I blinked away the tears threatening to pool in my eyes. “I just want you to be happy.”

He relaxed against the headboard. “You can’t orchestrate that for me. All you can do is be there.”

Yeah, but he needed to be alive for me to be there for him. “Always.”

After another couple of spoonfuls, he handed me back the bowl. “I’m going to crash again.”

I headed downstairs into the kitchen where I found Rabbi Abrams taking a box of tea from the cupboard. I washed and dried the bowl, then wandered over to the large island in the middle of the room. Opening the box, I sniffed the loose black Darjeeling.

“How can I help you?” Rabbi Abrams leaned against the counter, a green ceramic mug in hand. His black suit smelled of lavender which was an improvement from moth balls.

I eased onto a high bar stool. “Explain something, Rabbi. Why did David call us Rasha? We’re not wicked. We fight the wicked.”

Rabbi Abrams put the mug down. “Rasha does mean wicked or guilty as sin. But its more literal meaning is one who departs from the path and is lost. This was David’s reminder to his hunters how close they are to darkness. How easy it would become for them to truly be Rasha in every way.”

I’d had no idea.

All of my fellow Fallen Angels, at least the ones that I’d met, were battling their own demons. Even Ari. “Begs the question if maybe out of all the descendants of the original group of Rasha, those of us who actually become hunters happen to be that much closer to the darkness to begin with.”

The rabbi regarded at me shrewdly. “Could be, Navela. Could be.”

“About Ari?”

He sighed. “I performed the rites. He is not Rasha. We were wrong about him.” To be fair, he sounded pained saying it.

I slumped in defeat. “He’s going to hunt demons, magic power or not. And we both know how that ends.” I grasped the rabbi’s hands in mine. “Please.”

The kettle let out a shrill whistle. Waves of impatience rolled off me as he poured the steaming water into his mug and filled a tea ball, dropping it in the boiling liquid to steep. “There may be another way to check,” he admitted.