Christina turned her tear-streaked face to mine. “Why did it affect her and not me? What did I do to her?”
Fine questions I didn’t have answers to. Yet. The one thing I was absolutely certain of? If this was some fucked up demon product, then I’d hunt it down and destroy the evil spawn with my bare hands. Cold comfort, but I’d take it where I could find it.
2
We didn’t get home for another couple of hours, between telling a harried Max exactly what I’d seen and driving Christina to the hospital to get checked out. Oh, and scrolling through her contacts to find her brother Henry’s number. Christina and I had hung out at university so I’d heard her talk about Henry, but we’d never met. I explained who I was and asked him to come to get his sister, since once the sedative she’d finally been given in the ER kicked in, my friend couldn’t do much more than sluggishly wave at her phone.
Once he’d arrived, Henry assured me he’d get hold of Naomi’s family and keep me posted. I hadn’t been able to get any information out of the nurses about Naomi beyond “she’s in surgery and being looked after.”
I practically staggered out the ER doors, wrapping my arms around myself against the wind lashing at my denim jacket. The silence of deep night would have been a welcome relief except the earlier thump of the bass at the club still pounded in my temples and rang in my ears. My shoulders were wound tight; fatigue clawed at my eyes and brain, making everything gritty and dull.
I trudged across the parking lot. “I’m so tired that my feet don’t want to feet.”
Rohan was a champ. He got me to his precious ’67 Shelby Mustang, settled me in, and cranked the heat.
“Thank you.” I yawned, my head falling sideways against the window.
“For what?”
I pushed a dark brown strand of hair of out my mouth. “Sticking around.”
Rohan started the ignition with a quick flick of his wrist. The motor roared to life, settling into a purr as he pulled out of the parking spot. His biceps flexed as he shifted gears. “Yeah, I was gonna go off and leave you. Dummy.”
“Remember, you are a callous bastard.” I yawned again, my mouth opening so wide that my ears popped. “Can you swing by the house?”
“It’s late.”
“I know.”
He shrugged, and ten minutes later, drove around a quiet residential block so we could check out Dr. Gelman’s sister’s place. Dr. Esther Gelman was the witch that had given me the magic ceremony to get Ari inducted and her sister Rivka lived here in Vancouver.
Like every single other time that I’d come by, the place was locked up tight. No car in the car port, no change to the closed curtains. After I’d kind of broken in and damaged the place a few weeks ago, someone had set a new and powerful ward on the property. Anyone who got too close had the overwhelming urge to go elsewhere. It even affected me to some degree. I was overcome by a strong desire to go home and do my laundry. The ridiculousness of that idea generally reminded me it was magic at work and I could fight it, but damn, it was tough.
I had to find a way to contact Dr. Gelman, but could only think of the same idea that I was loath to do. It would have to wait. The Sweet Tooth situation was the more immediate concern anyway.
I rolled down the window to get some frigid air on my face and punched in the number for Brotherhood HQ in Jerusalem to let them know I had a case to investigate. The man I spoke to, older and with a French-Canadian accent, took the details about Sweet Tooth, assigned me a case number, and wished me luck.
“Huh.” I looked at the phone after he’d hung up. “That was kind of anti-climatic.”
Ro flicked on his turning signal. “Did you expect good fireworks or bad, phoning in your first mission?”
“Not sure. But note that I’m the hunter of record in charge, Snowflake.” That was pretty cool.
He sighed. “Such domination issues.”
My chuckle turned into a yawn, my lids fluttering shut.
I woke up to the emergency parking brake being engaged in front of Demon Club, the mansion housing the Vancouver chapter of the Brotherhood of David, that was located in the Southlands area of Vancouver’s west side. Trust me, now that I was the first female member of this secret society, changing the name was on my To-Do List, though given the rest of the shit on there, like exposing duplicitous rabbis on the Executive, it kind of lacked urgency.
I stumbled up the front stairs. Heavy cloud cover obscured the few stars that could usually be seen. Without moonlight, the gardens were formless shapes. The house itself was quiet; no lamps shone out the beveled bay windows, no smoke escaped the multiple chimneys. The forest surrounding the house was still and dark.
I kicked off my chunky emerald heels in the foyer, sighing dreamily as my toes flattened out against the cool tile. Rohan tried to steer me up the curving stairs to my bedroom, but I shook his hand off. “Not yet. Get me the hawkweed and meet me in the kitchen? Please?”
My nap had only made my body realize how badly it craved sleep, and even slapping my cheeks as I shuffled down the shadowy hallway over the intricate inlaid wood floor failed to wake me up. I stepped through the arched doorway into the kitchen.
The under-the-cupboard lights were on, casting warm lemon pools over the dark granite counter. The room smelled faintly of garlic, which got my stomach rumbling, which led me to the brilliant idea of protein as a pick-me-up.
After placing my frozen meal of choice in the stainless steel microwave that matched the industrial fridge and glass-topped stove, I examined the vial with the remaining crystals. There was nothing special about the container. Made of glass, it had a label with the words “Sweet Tooth” written in script.
The microwave went “bing.” I pulled my TV dinner out, puncturing the plastic wrap with a set of keys that I found on the counter.
An aggrieved sigh alerted me to Rohan’s presence. “All the options open to you and you go for that.” He poked at the plastic tray like he was scared the contents might bite him.
“I’ll have you know this is the finest Fried Chickeny Delight available in No Name Form.” I bit into a chicken leg. “Huh. You know what it doesn’t taste like?” I asked, munching.
“Chicken?”
I dropped the leg back on the tray. “Good guess. It’s chicken-esque.”
“Technically, it’s chicken-y.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure if ‘-y’ is a step up or down in the culinary world from ‘-esque.’” I crossed over to the fridge, pulled out the small jug of maple syrup, and doused the poultry-facsimiles like I was putting out a fire.
“Please eat real food. I honestly don’t know how you’re still alive.”
“Preservatives, obviously. And quit being such a food snob. This is real.” I tapped the jug. “One hundred percent real maple syrup, because I am Canadian and civilized.”
“Half-right.”