Chapter 5
The rabbi struggled up out of the chair, came over to me, and laid a gnarled arthritic hand on my shoulder. His knuckles were old-people-XL sized. I tried not to flinch-or think of demon claws. Good luck. A mélange of weirdo animal parts and other unholy bits fused into demony shape assaulted me in image form, courtesy of every nightmare bedtime story Ari had ever foisted on me. I shuddered.
"This situation is..." Rabbi Abrams frowned.
"Unfortunate? Unfair?" I supplied.
"A tragedy," he said.
"Excuse me?!"
He dropped his hand, giving a sharp tug to his black suit jacket. "I need to inform the Executive. We must figure out how best to proceed." He sounded like I'd murdered his favorite puppy and was asking him to shake my blood-drenched hand. Symbolically, that may have been true.
My hands tightened on the hem of my shirt. "Again, I ask if I have a say in the matter?"
Rabbi Abrams frowned, his expression stern. "You cannot ignore your power. Your destiny."
I threw him a grim smile. Challenge accepted.
My first order of business was sneaking out of the house. Mom and Dad rehashing the impossibility of it, the tragedy of it, was bad enough. But Ari refusing to speak to me? He'd sent me a final look of absolute betrayal, staggered into his room, and locked the door.
He'd never locked his door against me before. Our twin connection was as necessary as oxygen. Ari had been my shoulder to cry on when my life had fallen apart, supporting me against the folks when I'd taken a time-out from university, while I'd spent my childhood making my brother laugh whenever I saw that his Rasha studies were getting to him. He protected and anchored me, while I lightened up his world. There was no place for locked doors between us.
The fact that there was now cracked my chest open for the black pain to slither in. If anything could turn me even more firmly against being a demon hunter than I already was, it was that damn door. I'd knocked until my knuckles bled. Begged and pleaded, but I was met with silence. I was dead to him.
It was worse than actually being dead.
Taking shallow breaths, I ran through one of my old exercises to get through pre-show performance jitters. Who knew being on stage and learning how to act happy would come in handy so many times in my almost-adult life?
I rummaged among the clean laundry piled on my desk chair for jeans and my favorite hoodie and got changed. Knocking aside the box in my closet filled with my most prized tap dance competition medals, I pulled my worn leather backpack out, haphazardly throwing in clothes and toiletries.
I allowed myself one last look around my raspberry bedroom: from the random photos of fun times hanging by now-limp tape, to the collage of speeding tickets spelling out vroom, to my unmade bed with exactly three pillows-two to sleep on and one to cuddle-and the clothes and books exploding over every surface.
My lucky sunglasses, the ones "liberated" from Ari, lay on my dresser, under my black and white poster of Gregory Hines. He wore an expression of sheer delight as the camera caught him mid-tap step. Somewhere deep inside me still lived the ghost of a memory where no matter what was wrong in my life, I could dance my troubles away. A one, a two, you know what to do. My mantra for dance and life.
Yeah, well. That was then.
I grabbed the glasses, stuffing them on my head. Then I hefted my backpack over one shoulder, and pushed up the window. Tap had been the one place I'd shone. My realm. Yeah, I'd readjusted my life around the void when the dream was taken from me, but why should Ari have to experience crushing disappointment and heartache? At my hands? Fuck that.
Maybe if I ran away, did something selfish, or acted unworthy of the power, the ring would decide I wasn't the right twin after all and Ari could resume his path to destiny. The Brotherhood had invested twenty years in him, after all. Hopefully they'd work a little harder to bring him back into the fold.
Taking a deep breath, I swung my leg over the sill and reached for the gnarled tree branch outside my window. My stomach surged in that split second before my fingers connected with the rough bark but once they did, it was an easy climb down. I dropped the final few feet to the ground in a hard crouch, then commenced running away from home, trotting past well-kept family homes toward the main street.
Much as I hated to admit it, my dad was right. Demon Club and I were a terrible fit. First off, it had always been kept secret through the centuries, both to preserve its existence under the official "no demons here" stance of organized Judaism, and, since very few knew that demons existed, to keep mass panic from breaking out.
Sure, I'd kept mum about all of it, but let's be serious. If magic powers could score me free clothes or booze, #MoveOverBuffy would be trending by dinner.
I slowed down when I hit the corner house two blocks over, just long enough to stop inches from the fence and do a little dance for the old Golden Retriever, sending her into a yappy frenzy of joy. Still barking, she jumped onto her hind legs, resting her front paws on the fence so I could scratch her between the ears.
The uptight gay couple that owned her twitched their curtain aside to move me along with a dismissive point of their fingers. I wiggled my ass one last time, snickering at their twin expressions of thin-lipped displeasure. Knowing Goldie would keep barking for another twenty minutes was just an added bonus.
Then I took off.
It might seem amazing that in this age of CCTV and camera phones, where every little transgression was posted to social media, that the Brotherhood and demons managed to remain a secret from both the Jewish community and wider world. As Ari had taught me, the explanation was simple: never underestimate humans' desire to stay within our comfort zones.
Case in point, the yoga-clad mommy mafia clogging up the tree-lined sidewalk, venti lattes in hand. I swerved to avoid their race car pricey strollers and the judgmental stank wafting off them as they eyed me. We all sought affirmation. That's why, as a species, we were such hypercritical assholes. We wanted proof we'd picked the right career or married the right person, even if said proof was of the at least we're not them variety. We wanted our lives to tally in the positives column.
Only the whackjob paranormal bloggers sometimes got closer to the truth than everyone gave them credit for. Ari and I had spent a bunch of late nights being highly entertained by their theories.
While membership had grown since David's time, the formal structure of the Brotherhood wasn't put into place until October 10, 1871 with the Great Chicago Fire. With the city destroyed, hundreds dead, and the entire thing being blamed on a cow, the Brotherhood had stepped up and gotten globally organized to make, well, order of the chaos. No more pockets of hunters fighting demons under a loosely affiliated umbrella. They were now ruthlessly efficient in the war on evil with chapters all over the world.
Which was the second reason I wanted no part of this. "Ruthless" and "efficient" were not words to describe me. If humanity was depending on me to be part of some protector squad, they were screwed. I'd be dead within minutes of my first demon encounter, destiny notwithstanding.
A horn blared at me, jarring me out of my reverie.
I scrambled across the busy retail street, narrowly avoiding getting pancaked, and stepped onto the far curb in front of the dry cleaners, my heart pounding. "A little respect for the jay-walker here!"
Where was this magic I was supposed to have received? Had there been a glitch because I was female? Because I was a glitch? If I really had some cool new superpower, wouldn't I have sped after the Mazda and flipped it on its side, mashing it to a pulp with angry pounds of my fists instead of standing here shaking? And if my magic did show up, would I have some stupid or embarrassing power like I'd teased Ari about?
I made my way to the bank machine, opening my wallet to sort through my credit cards. The Visa was bunk. I was scared to even stick it in an ATM for fear some collection agency bruiser would appear to hustle me off. But the Amex? I tapped it against my chin. This baby was my emergency card, paid in full each month by Daddy Dearest.
Sliding the card into the cash machine, I punched in the ten thousand dollar limit. It made a beeping noise that sounded suspiciously like laughter, informing me in neat print that my cash advance limit was $500. Bah.
The money got tucked deep in an inside pocket in the backpack. Then I boarded the downtown bus, unsure of my destination.