Chapter 17

Jasmine’s room at the Maccabee rehab clinic had a view of the mountains, state-of-the-art equipment to bolster any magic healing treatments, and two steely-eyed operatives on guard outside her door.

The elderly Eishei Kodesh leader of the drug ring looked fragile under her pile of heated blankets, her left wrist manacled to the bed rail with a magic-nulling handcuff. The side of her head with her missing ear was bandaged, but there was no bruising or other visible injury and her vacant stare wasn’t due to pain medication.

She wasn’t responding to treatment and Monica, the Maccabee healer in charge of her case, feared her trauma was too severe. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case for Francesca and Paul, though even they were healing slowly.

I’d come up empty searching for anyone matching shedim with humans, and now my interviewee was almost comatose. Had Dmitri set me up to fail?

Monica showed me the call button in case I required assistance and left me with the patient.

“Jasmine? I’m Aviva Fleisher. I’m the operative who got you out that night.” I leaned forward, directly into her field of vision.

Her gaze paused on me for a fraction of a second before slipping off, but she didn’t flinch or scream in horror that I was a demon. The only sound was her slow breathing against the percussive beeps of her heart monitor.

I prayed that her brain was so scrambled that the sight of my Cherry form had blended together with her memory of Bratwurst Demon into a single nightmarish fever dream. I pulled a chair close to the bed and sat down. “How did you find the shedim, Jasmine?”

She made a soft croaking sound.

“Take all the time you need. You’re safe now and getting the best care possible.”

A tear leaked out of one eye. Was she thinking that getting well would only speed up her inevitable path to incarceration?

Well, it’s not like the metal cuff on her wrist was the latest in Parisian accessories.

I draped my forearms on my thighs. “You can have a lawyer present if you like, however, this is just a friendly visit asking for your assistance. Who connected you with the demon?”

Jasmine’s lips moved.

I cocked my head, trying to catch what she said. “Again, please?”

She made the faintest sound.

I gripped the sides of the chair against the urge to clap my hands over my ears because she was humming, and the sound thrust me back to the horror of the drug lab. The sterile room wavered, overlaid with my memory of blood and mangled bodies, while the scent of lemons washed over me.

I fought to keep my breath steady and banish the all-too-real memory. “Jasmine, you’re guilty of colluding with a demon and there’s a special prison for criminals like you.” Sector A was the only outcome. “If there’s anything you can tell me about the shedim you were producing drugs with, that would work in your favor. Get you some special privileges to make your life easier there.” My lie was so smooth, it would have fooled the magic to detect them.

Her hummed melody was annoying but familiar, some golden oldie heard in dentists’ offices or supermarkets. It grew stronger and steadier, almost like a fuck-you. Weirdly, that eased the tension in my shoulders. This, at least, was familiar territory. She was a suspect; this was her way of refusing to cooperate.

Unfortunately, it didn’t matter how I phrased my questions, all she did was hum.

Jasmine hadn’t looked at me this entire time, staring out the window like she was an empty house. I wished the owners had locked this one up before they left and not left a window open with the radio on, because it was creepy as hell.

The song she hummed was slow, dreamy, and now burned into my brain like the worst earworm. I recalled it had a lot of falsetto in it, even though I didn’t remember the title or any of the lyrics.

My questioning grew louder and more insistent. I needed the answer as to how she teamed up with the shedim for my report and I needed it now.

The door to the room opened and Monica strode in. “You need to stop. Her vitals are soaring.”

“I’m authorized to be here,” I said.

Monica lifted Jasmine’s uncuffed wrist and checked her pulse. “No, you were permitted to ask my patient questions at my discretion. You’ve lost my goodwill and now it’s time to go.”

I stood up, ready to argue, but Monica called out for the other two operatives to come escort me out. I saved the “fuuuuuck” building into a scream at the back of my throat for when I was in my car and could add slamming my hand against the wheel for good measure.

I couldn’t put this pointless interview in my report. Dmitri would seize on the excuse to discipline me. Did Sector A have visiting hours?

That earworm melody stuck in my head didn’t help my mood. The song swam around in my brain, defying my attempts to overwrite it with better music. Well, there was one answer I could get. I pulled up an app on my phone for recognizing songs, which I only had because this one café near work played great music and I was always asking the barista what the song was. She finally suggested I get this app.

I felt really stupid sitting in my car humming the same snippet of melody at my phone and doing it so poorly that the app didn’t produce any results, but it was driving me nuts to have a song stuck in my head that I couldn’t identify.

A car pulled up next to me, the driver gesturing to ask whether I was leaving.

I threw my phone on the passenger seat, started my engine, and pulled out. Six soft hits on an AM station later, I was yawning like a fiend, but that song hadn’t played. I pulled into a spot in the parking garage at work and cut the engine.

Right as the notes in my head came out of my speakers.

I wrenched the engine back on, stabbing at the buttons on the stereo screen to get to the title and band. It was “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers.

I listened to the rest of the lyrics, wondering why Jasmine infected my brain with this love song. Was it personal to her? Did it bring back a nostalgic memory from a long-lost romance? I winced. That last high note really hit the back molars.

Fifteen minutes later, I stared at the email in my inbox from Dmitri, not wanting to open it because he’d see I’d read it and hadn’t yet filed my final report. He didn’t want piecemeal information, but I had to buy myself time to get him all the answers he desired.

While I let a plan percolate in the back of my brain, I did a Google search on Jimmy Tucco and Darby Connor, the two Eishei Kodesh whom Zaven met in prison. I used my phone’s data plan instead of going through Maccabee Wi-Fi so my queries weren’t tracked.

Jimmy was still serving time for assault. One photo of him showed his gang tat from a group with a virulent and very public hatred of vampires. They blamed vamps for muscling in on what used to be human mobs and their clashes were bloody. I didn’t find anything that pointed to a connection with Maud or knowledge of demon existence.

I opened the first search result on Darby Connor, expecting more of the same, and froze.

Before Dermot “Darby” Connor went to prison for embezzlement, he’d been an up-and-coming poker player on the Vegas circuit.

I fired a text off to Maud that I needed to speak to her, but the message remained unread, even though she was back in Hong Kong. Faced with both her silence and my unfinished report, I did what the situation called for: got a bag of chips from the staff kitchen and procrastinated at my workstation.

A photo of a naked man with a flabby ass being chased by two grossed-out looking Hellions popped up on my phone. Ezra had captioned it, Another day in Hell .

Grimacing, I opened our text chain and fired back four vomiting emojis.

It was a forfeit . Ezra punctuated it with not one, not two, but three laughing crying emojis.

He forfeit his clothes? That didn’t seem like an acceptable wager at the Hell.

He forfeit his wealth. It turns out his designer suit was all he had . They’re trying to catch him but he’s like a slippery pig. How’s your workday?

We Maccabees only engage in serious endeavors, Cardoso. I sent him a photo of me eating chips.

Well, I won’t distract you further from those weighty pursuits. Get it? Chips? Weighty?

I pressed my lips together, holding in a laugh. I’d missed his nerdy side. GROAN .

He didn’t reply but the exchange had cheered me up. While I finished my snack, I perused some search results about “Unchained Melody.” Apparently, it was used in an infamous sexy pottery scene in the movie Ghost . That sounded vaguely familiar.

“‘Released in 1965.’” Gemma stood at my shoulder, doing biceps curls with a water bottle. She wrinkled her nose. “Old people music do it for you?”

I slammed my laptop shut. “Creeping on colleagues do it for you? Back the fuck out of my personal space.”

“I’m not speaking to you by choice. Marv sent me. You’re our new team bitch.”

“I’m finishing up a case.”

“Michael said that wouldn’t take up all your time. We need help and she told Marv you were available.” Gemma snapped her fingers at me. “Those papers won’t file themselves.”

Marv may have been the level three lead on this fraud case, but Gemma took it upon herself to model how to debase me for the rest of the team.

Case in point, me now painstakingly taping together a document that she’d instructed me to shred, then denied, claiming it was of vital importance and how could I be so stupid.

Outwardly, I let it all bounce off me, complying with a smile and a can-do attitude, while internally, I ground my teeth and imagined ways to slowly eviscerate her. It gave me something to do besides obsess over how the Eishei Kodesh drug makers and Bratwurst Demon found each other.

Gemma made a snarky comment about me leaving at five on the dot, but I’d put in a full shift and doing another photocopy run was not overtime worthy.

Maud checked in, saying she’d just woken up and could talk later.

I texted Silas but didn’t receive a reply that my request was a go until I was back home making dinner. After reading his precise instructions with a sigh, I scarfed down my pasta and salad, and tightly closed all the curtains. However, it took a while to find a slotted screwdriver. I searched the toolbox in the closet, under Sachie’s mattress, and in all the kitchen drawers before finding one in her medicine cabinet sitting in a cup with her toothbrush.

Taking it with a grimace, I headed for our front door to lever the mezuzah off the right door post. Was my plan worth removing the magic ward? Especially when it was in order to allow a portal made of demon magic from the Copper Hell into my apartment? What if Delacroix crashed the party? Unlike vampires, shedim did not require an invitation to enter someone’s home, hence the ward to keep them out.

Mezuzahs were supposed to be permanently affixed with a rabbi’s blessing. Once I took this down, I couldn’t just stick it back up. I’d have to call the security company to come set a new ward. I didn’t mind paying for that, even though these special heavy-duty versions of the wards did not come cheap, but our home would be vulnerable until then, and this wasn’t just my decision to make.

I phoned Sach at work, explaining about Jasmine’s condition, what I wanted to do in the wake of that and why. She agreed that Delacroix likely wouldn’t hurt me until after I’d joined him for Brimstone Breakfast Club, the risk of some random demon showing up was slight, and gave her permission.

I worked the mezuzah free, just in time for a rift with black magic mesh strung across it to open next to my sofa.

Silas stood in its mouth. “You need to invite me in.”

“Please come in.”

He stepped through, looking out at the impressive water view while he toed off his shoes.

Mezuzah in hand, I waited for the portal to close, but it just hung there.

Ezra walked into view. The cut of his suit was as severe as his jawline and the steeliness in his eyes. He’d slicked his curls off his forehead, contributing to his ruthless demeanor. “Going to invite me over too?”

This wasn’t the vampire I’d been enjoying a renewed text friendship with; it was a warrior.

Mezuzahs didn’t keep out vampires, and the myth about them needing to be invited into homes was true. But Ezra had been invited in way back when and there was no way to rescind that invitation.

I planted my feet wide, goaded into battle mode myself. “You already know you can come and go as you please. I can’t stop you.”

He flinched and I wished I could take the words back. “Much as you wish you could,” he said.

“You dumped me, Ezra. Yeah, I wanted to rescind all your rights to this place. I also wished flaming hemorrhoids on you. Did those ever kick in?” I peered at him hopefully.

“Charming,” he said dryly.

“I wasn’t kidding. About either.”

“I’m not forcing my way into your home.”

Maybe if he’d behaved like his text self version, I’d have let him in.

Excising his presence from my home after our breakup had almost cost me my sanity. It had cost me a lovely bedding set after repeated washings removed his scent but not the memories of what we’d gotten up to on it. So maybe not.

“Thank you for bringing Silas,” I said.

“Once again, you’ve asked me to put myself out,” he said. “It’s not easy to open portals this way. Harder still to keep it from Delacroix.”

I stormed over to him, any guilt at not inviting him in gone. “Is that a threat?”

Ezra shook his head sadly. “Why is that always your first instinct with me? No, Aviva. It’s not a threat. It’s just a fact. You claim to love those. Yet you keep expecting me to help you, which I do, every time, even when you don’t explain why. You won’t even give me a fucking inch, but that fact is of no importance to you.”

I opened my mouth, but Ezra and the portal vanished.

“It’s not of no importance,” I muttered to the empty air.

“Instead of spouting obscure double negatives to the wall, care to tell me why I’m here?” My poor sofa creaked under Silas’s bulk. “I’m all for a clandestine rendezvous when the Jolly Hellhound and the entrance to your condo tower are probably being monitored,” he said, “but what was so urgent that I had to come tonight?”

I perched on the edge of a plush chair. “See, the reason I asked you here is, well…” I rubbed my hand over the back of my neck. “I want you to hypnotize me.”

Silas slung his arm along the back of the sofa. “I’m not quite old enough to compel you, but even if I was, why in heaven’s name would you want that? To do what?”

“I don’t want you to compel me. Our chapter had a vamp operative a few years back around your age. He couldn’t compel either, but he had this one case where a witness was willing to give us their account, except their trauma locked them out of their memories to it. Regular hypnotherapy didn’t work, yet he was able to touch their skull and funnel his magic into them enough to relax them and guide them through the incident.” I hugged a cushion to my chest. “I was hoping you could do something similar for me, with details I don’t consciously remember because they didn’t seem important during the lab bust. I’m under the gun to get answers and wrap up this investigation.”

Silas glanced at the spot where the portal had been. “Why me?”

“I trust you.”

He laughed darkly and I shivered at the menacing sound coming out of this preternaturally polite man. “Oh, sweetheart,” he said, “that right there’s the last thing you should do.”