Leonie Hendricks: Demon P.I. (Nava Katz #7) Paperback

Chapter 1

“He loves me.” Pluck.

The asper demon flinched and thrashed against his binding, as I ripped another one of his tiny wings off his knobby shoulder. It was less like wishing on a four-leaf clover and more like plucking a cantankerous, still-living chicken.

The bits of him that weren’t chained to the wall with solid iron cuffs were pinned using iron knives like a butterfly specimen, while his three eyes were nothing more than puffy lumps in an already lumpy face from the concentrated salt and ghost pepper spray that I’d subdued him with. And sure, this sounded serial killer sadistic, but aspers were notorious for disemboweling first and asking questions later.

“He loves me not.” Pluck.

“Suck it, sweetheart.” The demon shook his rattlesnake tail at me, his sneer growing lewder.

Using one of the many blades casually tossed on the table next to me, I impaled his penis stand-in.

He screamed, a high-pitched buzzing cry.

“Next time, get consent to bring that swizzle stick of yours to show-and-tell.” I kicked aside the pile of wings that resembled strips of dried jerky scattered at my feet. The friendly chat I’d called him in for had now gone on about three hours too long. Time to get what I needed and have a snack.

“Daeva’s horn. You have it. Where’d it go?” I twisted the blade in deeper, taking no perverse thrills in this single-minded violence. My mentor and boss, Harry Dunn, had pounded it into me to never apply a human moral code where demons were concerned. My life was on the line with every single interaction, and power was the only language demons responded to. I’d become fluent, even if I always attempted to negotiate my way out first.

“She took from me. I took from her.” The asper spat blood at me, hitting me square in the face. There it was, the “an eye for an eye” philosophy these thuggish demons employed. Actually, it was more, “an eye for you looked at me funny,” or “an eye for, well, it’s Tuesday,” with these guys.

I was going to take things up a notch when a few drops of asper blood got in my mouth and my inner goblin awoke with a vengeance, clawing for supremacy. The blood was hot and rich, with just an edge of savory. My fingers froze into claw formations, my half-demon side howling in my head and forming a dark shadow in the white light that I always imagined my human body suffused with.

I eyed the asper like he was a chicken and I was the Colonel.

Wiping the blood off my tongue with my sleeve, I spun around and shouldered out the door, tossing my heavy gloves on the ground. Sweat ran down my neck into my protective suit.

“You’re getting demon all over my nice office.” Harry jabbed a bony finger at the gloves, causing the unlit cigarette hanging off the bottom left corner of his mouth to quiver. “Keep that mess in the interrogation room.”

I stumbled past him into the small kitchen here at Dunn and Associates P.I.–a misnomer if there was one, as there was only one Associate and right now, she was scrabbling at the cupboard, teetering on the balls of her feet, balance shot. I was so, so hungry.

Harry found me a protein bar, unwrapping it and shoving it at me in record time. “Je nourris. Tu nourris. Say it, Leo.”

“Je nourris. Tu–” I shuddered, a red wash coloring my vision.

My phone rang, buzzing against my thigh.

Harry grasped my chin and forced me to look him in the eyes. “Chew and talk, kiddo.”

“Nourris. Elle nourrit. I feed. You feed. She feeds.” I repeated the mantra that he and I had come up with to remind myself that where and how I fed was a choice. That my human nature was still in control. Had I caved to my demon half, blood sustenance would no longer be optional. Blood was life to goblins, it was sacred, and to refuse it, like I did, was blasphemy.

And friends wondered why I never had any interest in vampire stories. It wasn’t so sexy when you lived it day in and day out.

Six more times my phone rang, but I couldn’t answer, fighting to firmly reassert my human side. Despite my determination to eat from the basic food groups and not someone’s bleeding heart, I still had to chow down more often than most people. Luckily, I metabolized faster as well, so by the time I’d scarfed back an entire bag of chocolate-covered almonds, the haze and the frenzied need had faded.

Classical music floated in from the front office. Ugh. Mahler.

My phone rang yet again. Seven missed calls–all from my mother. She wouldn’t stop until I answered. Please let someone be dead. “Hey, Mom.”

“Lord protect us. I just had the television on and they were reporting fresh demons on the prowl in Vancouver. Fresh! As if they were ripe melons. I was so worried about you, and then when I couldn’t reach you, I feared the worst. Leonie, you need to come to church and pray. It’s the only way we’re going to survive this plague of evil. That’s what we get for our sinful ways.”

Pretty damn ironic, since she’d had the one-night stand with my goblin sire, believing him nothing more than a charming and very human rogue, and I was the one suffering the consequences.

Gripping the edge of the counter, I tried to tune out her distressed chatter, wishing I could yell that her every word hit me like a bullet. Or just snap and show her the reds of my eyes, rip the veil off her world once and for all. But I’d never do that. I was a good daughter, the child who understood her fears. Not one more part of the nightmare.

“Which church is it this week?” I said. “Baptist? Evangelical? You’ve gone through so many since demons came out.” What little patience I had for her constant doom and gloom had been worn thin in tamping down my blood rush.

Harry snatched the phone away, calming her down with some bullshit until he managed to end the call, while I stewed at my outburst with petty satisfaction and a heap of guilt.

My mood felt reflected in the ugly décor. The kitchen walls were covered in hideous blue tiles printed with gold horseshoes left over from the short-lived business before us that sold bogus timeshares in Vegas, but the “wood grain” laminate counter boasted a top-of-the-line espresso maker so most days I counted the room a win.

Today, I counted it a lifeline. One quick cup to sharpen my wits then I’d wrap up this business with the asper. I slid a small ceramic cup under the stainless-steel nozzle and hit the button for a double shot, taking deep breaths in time to the rumbling of the machine.

Harry leaned back against the counter, his bushy white hair sticking up every which way. “She’s a crackpot, but she means well. Some people just aren’t equipped to handle the truth. Don’t let her get to you.”

“Helpful advice from a man who has yet to tell his mom he smokes.”

“Don’t piss me off or I’ll replace you,” he said.

“No, you won’t,” I said, “because if you fire me you’d have to change the sign, and you’re way too cheap for that.”

Technically, I was not yet licensed to be a private investigator and the scope of my duties should have been pretty limited. Realistically, we were dealing with demons. Who was going to file a complaint that I’d overstepped? I was Harry’s right-hand woman, out in the field while he worked the desk after an altercation with a client that had left Harry hospitalized with three broken ribs and a shattered jaw a year ago. It wasn’t always easy between us, but there was no one else I’d rather work for and no other place in Vancouver felt this much like home.

I hugged him. “I’m sorry.”

“Mouthy youngster.” He stole my espresso and slugged it back.

I got another espresso cup and tried a second time to caffeinate up. “Why the Mahler?”

Some people’s moods could be read by their body language or clothing. For Harry it was his choice of classical music, and Mahler meant he was on edge.

“Nothing.” Harry stuffed my phone in his pocket.

“Give it.” I shot the espresso back.

“No. Break’s over. Get back to work. Your do-gooder friends have cost me most of my business. Don’t lose me the few clients we still have. No job left unresolved.”

Harry’s unbreakable rule that he’d drummed into me. Rules were important. They provided structure and an anchor to cling to when the world felt scarily awry.

“Demons are high off being outed to the public right now, so yeah, inter-demon business is slow,” I said. “They’re too busy terrifying the general population for the cameras, but it’s a temporary blip and you know it. Another few weeks and they’ll be coming to us with all their disputes. Meantime, considering we’re being paid on an hourly rate, I’d think you’d show a little appreciation for my initiative in drawing out the billable hours.”

Harry removed the cigarette from his mouth and stuffed it behind his ear, dislodging the one already there. “Find out where the asper stashed the horn. The daeva promised a bonus if the horn was back within the week. And we like bonuses.”

Bonuses were good, answers were better.

I stomped back to the interrogation room and kicked the door open, which thudded against the wall with a satisfying shudder. Cautiously, I stood at the threshold and inhaled, but my inner goblin didn’t resurface. Stained concrete floor, rickety table with torture instruments placed at just the perfect angle to catch the cold glint of fluorescents, a scarred wooden wall, textured by years of thrashing spawn parts–the feng shui in here really pumped out those calming vibes.

Let’s see. The nice cop routine hadn’t worked. Offering to get back what the daeva had stolen from the asper hadn’t worked. Torture hadn’t worked. That left me with only one option.

“You’re free to go.” I pulled all the knives out, careful to only touch them by their carved wooden handles, and set them aside to be cleaned. As a half-demon, salt was no problem for me and even small doses of iron were okay, but long exposure, frequent handling, or just too much of the damn stuff, and I became severely weakened. Home Depot jaunts, fun as they were, required a shit-load of fortification and usually made me break out in hives.

Checking that the salt and ghost pepper spray was within reach, I retrieved a set of keys from my pocket and uncuffed the demon.

The asper slid to the floor on wobbly legs before catching himself. “Wrong move,” he said and lunged for me.

I sidestepped him and held up a finger. “One sec.”

Shocked, he actually froze, his right hand gripping his left forearm.

I snapped a photo of him on my phone, before typing in a quick text. “I’ll just send this, shall I?”

“What’s that?” His barbed unibrow kind of dipped in the middle which I figured was his way of frowning. He rubbed his slender forearm that draped down to the floor like a gorilla’s. Was he fluffing it to get muscly and hard? Man, demons were weird.

“Just sending a quick text to Malik to let him know that there’s going to be some blowback from the daeva. It’s a small courtesy, but he likes to take an interest,” I said.

“Like you know Malik.” The asper sneered at me, but his lacerated rattlesnake tail vibrated wildly, indicative of distress. He continued to rub his left arm. Hmm. He hadn’t been cuffed there, I hadn’t stabbed him in that part of his arm, and his right forearm wasn’t getting the same treatment.

“Personally, I’ve only met the demon king once.” When the asshole had compelled me to use as a bargaining chip. Once was more than enough, thanks. “But my best friend Nava Katz was the one who helped him claim the throne. You’ve heard of her, right?”

The witch who had killed the demon who’d previously held the title of Satan and crowned a new King of Hell. The demons weren’t sure if she was an ally or an enemy. A lot of the witches and Rasha, the male demon hunters, weren’t either.

His eyes bugged out, or rather, they slurped through his swollen lids. He gulped. “Your best friend?”

“Yup. I’m tight with her Rasha boyfriend, too. And the witches. Huh. Might get pretty busy for you soon, just saying.” I held up the phone. “So, the text? Sending, not sending?”

His rattle drooped. “You don’t gotta get Malik or nobody involved.”

“It’s no trouble.” I lowered my finger to the send button.

“No!”

I raised an eyebrow.

“I buried the horn,” he said.

“Be more specific.”

He went into great detail about the spit of land out on Annacis Island and the two trees next to a worn picnic table on the south end by a half-rotted log. All I had to do was measure out six paces from the end of the log pointing at the water and dig.

“Was that so hard?” I patted him on the arm he’d been rubbing, but he jerked away.

Oh no you don’t, you big liar. I grabbed his forearm and using my redcap goblin magic, split his skin open. Black clotted liquid gushed out. Since redcaps fed off blood, they could suck it out hard enough to tear open flesh, dragging the innards out. Using my magic, even to draw blood didn’t awaken my half-demon side. I’d decided it was because it was my magic and I was in control. It wasn’t a skill set I was necessarily putting on my resume, but at times like this, it came in handy.

The asper jabbed at me with his rattle, but my magic was literally deflating him, compromising his ability to move, and I kept out of harm’s way.

Gritting my teeth, I pulled harder. A jagged shard of bone punched up through the flesh.

He clubbed me across the side of my head with his free hand.

My hearing morphed into a ringing noise that throbbed through my brain. I adjusted my grip, probing and casting my awareness through his forearm until I hit some kind of blockage just before his wrist. I rent his flesh open from elbow to palm, focused on doing this efficiently and expediently, with as little pain as possible to the asper. Even if that asshole thought I’d fall for his lies, just because I was half-human.

The open flesh revealed a six-inch daeva horn embedded in his muscle.

The asper swung for me again, but I’d disoriented him enough that his motion was slow, sloppy, and easily dodged. I grabbed a knife and extracted the horn, the demon falling to his knees with a howl.

Prize in hand, I flooded him with my magic, zapping it through his veins to his kill spot. While killing demons was sometimes necessary, whenever it happened, the bars on my goblin’s cage got a little bit flimsier. But I couldn’t let the asper walk away–they were notoriously vindictive, and even the threat of Malik would lose its potency after a while.

He winked into oblivion with a pop, right as a needle-like pain spiked through my left thigh. My leg buckled under me, my protective suit torn and the tip of his rattle embedded into my flesh. It hung there quivering even though he was dead and gone.

Ice-cold venom flooded my system. Shaking violently, I fumbled at the stinger with fingers growing stiff and numb, but when I tore it free, my fuzzy brain was unable to process what I was supposed to do next.

A sudden spasm wracked my frame and stole the breath from my lungs. I crashed sideways against the wall, smashing my head against the concrete. The sharp bite of pain kicked me into clarity. Get the venom out.

Extracting poison was essentially the same process as extracting blood. I sent my magic into the affected area and drew the poison out in black pinpricks that welled up through my skin. The second it was all removed into a sticky resin ball that I easily and safely disposed of, I collapsed in a soggy heap on the floor, the sweat on my body drying into a clammy chill, as I used the last of my healing magic to seal the wound.

“We don’t get paid extra for killing them. What if he was going to hire us to get his loot back from the daeva? You could’ve cost us a client.” Harry prodded me with his scuffed loafer, his unlit cigarette clenched in his grip.

“Oh, please. Only one of us was getting out of the room and you know it. Figured you’d rather have had it be me,” I mumbled, hugging myself for warmth.

“Tough call. I don’t have to pay him benefits.”

“What benefits?” I said through chattering teeth. “You pay slightly better than Ebenezer Scrooge and his employees got Christmas off.”

“Heh. But you’re rich in life experience.” He left the room, returning momentarily with a thin cotton blanket, which he draped over me. “Get up.”

The shock suffered from demon encounters was an often-enough occurrence in our office that Harry kept one of those warming closets for blankets on hand, like in a hospital.

I pulled the blanket up to my chin, grateful for the soothing heat. “Laying here and dying.”

He wrenched me to my feet. For a bony old guy, he was very strong. “You are not dying. Do you understand?”

I shook his hands off from their death grip on my shoulders, retrieved the blanket that had slipped off, and wrapped it around myself. Much better. “You’re not still upset about my final battle shenanigans–”

“Shenanigans?” Harry crushed his cigarette so hard the tobacco spilled out both ends. “Oh, wait. Are you perhaps referring to that one time you nearly killed yourself on national television?”

I winced. Yup, still upset.

A month ago, I’d tried to let a demon who ate magic take mine. Nee–my nickname for my bestie Nava–had needed bait and I had hoped becoming magicless would be my ticket to a normal life. That I could finally be a regular human, not a snack-addicted half-redcap who had a thing for blood. When I’d seen the chance to rid myself of my powers during the battle, I’d jumped on the opportunity. I’d scared the pants off several people, an infuriating Italian one in particular, and given Harry a slight heart attack as he watched via livestream.

“I didn’t know that losing my magic would also mean losing my life!” I stomped my foot. “Can we move past this already? I swear it’s not suicide if I didn’t intend to die.”

Harry grunted and picked up the daeva horn between his thumb and forefinger. “I want out, Leo. I’m old, I’m tired, and I want to sit on a beach and paint goddamn watercolors. I’ve had enough excitement for ten lifetimes.”

“I know.” I took the horn from him and cleaned it off with the edge of the blanket.

“Then prove to me that in a couple of years, when you’re finished your degree and you have your P.I. license, you’ll be ready to take over.”

Pride swelled in my chest. “Your business won’t fail in my hands.”

He wanted closure on this chapter of his life and I was key to that. I could relate. I wished that I’d had closure with the spawn that had sired me, and that my mother could get over that “guy” who’d gotten her pregnant. It was tough to move forward when one foot was stuck in the tar pit of the past. When one part of your life remained unresolved.

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” he said. “You have a harder road than most, kiddo. Not denying it. But if you’re really serious about this as a lifestyle, you gotta make peace with who you are.”

“I have. I swear it. I truly didn’t know the consequences, and now that I do, I’d never do that to you.” I handed him the horn to put away for safe-keeping until the daeva came to claim it.

He shook his head at me with a long-suffering look and left.

I was the kid Harry had never had and he was the closest thing to a dad in my life. Kobold, the redcap goblin that had knocked Mom up, didn’t count. Oh, he’d made an effort in his own terrorizing way when I was younger, stealing into my room in the dead of night to “educate” me about my rightful heritage. Usually in the form of fucked-up games to draw out my redcap side. That all ended about six years ago, shortly after my fifteenth birthday, when I’d declared I was Team Human and refused to play. Kobold had threatened to kill me, so I’d called his bluff, banking on the fact that I was his only progeny and he was obsessed with someone carrying on his line.

He’d blinked first in our game of chicken, but not before leaving me with a three-inch scar across my abdomen. Something to remember him by. His last words were that my nature would win out and when it did, he’d be here to witness it.

We didn’t exchange Christmas cards.

I flexed my fingers. The feeling had returned to my extremities, so I peeled off the wrecked protective suit, glad to be back in my slightly sweaty silver velvet leggings and a rust-colored velvet tunic. I put on my silver jewelry: rings, jangling bracelets, and small hoops in my ears to match my eyebrow ring, feeling more like myself.

Some women took on the world with a great lipstick or a pair of kickass heels. For me, it was these dozen shiny accessories that armored me up and let me move through life wrapped in my own pretty treasure trove.

The music snapped off. Mahler was bad enough. No music was code red.

I dumped the blanket in the hamper next to the warming closet that was also kept in the kitchen and went into the front office.

Harry sat there, holding but not drinking his customary mug of tea. His computer looked so forlorn without the jumble of UFO toys. Most of the models had been kept at home, but he’d had a bunch of them on top of his old clunky monitor, along with some alien figurines I’d found for him over the years.

He’d trashed them all on his sixty-fifth birthday in a bout of drunken disillusionment, and taken up watercolors. His technique was solid enough, but whenever he painted people or animals, there was always something uncannily off and vaguely disturbing. I held out hope he’d improve because I really didn’t want any more eerie kitten canvases around the office. Their eyes followed me and not in a fun “Scooby Doo” way.

I turned a painting of an especially spooky Siamese cat on Harry’s desk backwards so it wouldn’t glower at me. “I’m not gonna hurt myself.”

“Stop doing that.” He grumpily returned the picture back to normal. “I’m proud of this one.”

“May I please have my phone now?”

“Your generation needs to get off social media. It’s toxic. Go see a friend instead.” He slid it under a stack of folders.

I snatched it away and immediately opened a browser window. It was the same news we’d had since demons became public knowledge. A lot of proselytizing about humanity’s fate and updates on government treaties with witches and Rasha. There was also speculation about whether the Israeli government would be allowed to try Rabbi Mandelbaum for attempting to unleash the apocalypse in Jerusalem or whether this was something for the International Court of Justice.

A headline screamed out at me: Witches and Rasha! They’re the new celeb couples, but will this sexy and magical engagement last?

Underneath was a photo of a tall, willowy Italian beauty, all dark hair and doe eyes, sporting quite the rock on her finger. And holding her hand?

Drio Rossi. The man who, despite having terrible pitch and impressively bad range, had sung his heart out to me just over a week ago and then showered me in Italian endearments. He’d had a rule about not kissing anyone since the love of his life had been murdered, but he’d broken it, all for me. And despite his nonstop sarcasm and an arrogance that was so massive, I swear it had a moon and gravitational pull, he’d honestly been kind of perfect–until he’d hied off across the ocean and maintained radio silence where I was concerned.

The picture of the happy couple shook in my hand. Guess I knew why he hadn’t called.