I scratched at the vral grime coating my skin. A shower would have to wait, because the second we stepped through the front door into the foyer with its cathedral ceiling, Drio snapped, “In here,” in a way that left no room for discussion.

We hurried into the TV room with its brown leather man cave couches and comfortable clutter. The one place in the house that didn’t feel straight out of Exclusive British Men’s Club Monthly. Drio was perched on the fat arm of one sofa, staring in bewilderment at the massive flat screen TV mounted to the wall. “King’s holding a press conference.”

The sexy rumble of Drio’s Italian accent combined with his olive skin, blond hair, and startling green eyes made him an irresistible combination. For most. His open loathing of me and sadistic hard-on for demon torture meant I could resist him just fine.

I turned my attention to the screen. Samson King sat at a long table, speaking into the microphone placed in front of him, decked out in a tailored button-down that I’d recently seen on the cover of GQ. His hair was more artfully gelled than a performing boy band’s at the Teen Choice Awards. Projected behind him was a huge logo featuring a stylized red SK in the middle of a black diamond. The flurry of flashbulbs were blinding even on my side of the TV.

“He’s still in Prague, right?” Standing, since I didn’t want to dirty the furniture, I squirmed, trying to relieve the throb in my back from my wounds.

Rohan rummaged amidst the shit on the coffee table for a tin of salve.

“Sì. He’s there,” said Drio.

Samson had flown from Vancouver to Prague a few days ago to shoot the remaining scenes of Hard Knock Strife, with its age-old plot of “childhood buddies get caught up in a gangster lifestyle.” His character finds redemption in the end, scarred but wiser. In other words, total fiction.

I sighed as Rohan tugged up the back of my sweater to gently apply the mint-based, healing gel to my skin. The relief as it numbed the area was immediate.

Drio jerked his head toward the TV. “Watch, they’re replaying the clip.”

Samson had the build and smug handsome looks of a rich-kid college athlete even though he was pushing thirty. The good guy with enough of a bad boy edge to keep from being too All-American, he was always up for a party–that was both his character in this flick and the essence of his brand. He gave people life at its funnest and the masses thirsted for it like water.

Our suspicion was that Samson fed off the envy he inspired and the humiliation he drove people to in their quest to be more like him. Coupled with the number of deaths around him that couldn’t be directly linked but were too frequent and too much the inevitable end result of the misery he incited to be accidental, we had probable cause to believe him a demon.

Emphasis on probable.

Once we had proof that he was a demon, either his true name, form, or hard evidence about the specifics of his master plan, we’d kill him, because that was what we Rasha did.

I barely registered the feel of Rohan dropping my sweater down, his ministrations finished, listening as Samson announced his retirement from acting to follow his interests behind the scenes. This made no logical sense. He expounded on his plans, pointing to the logo behind him and explaining his new ventures of a record label and management company, with further media expansion to come.

Drio muted the sound, not interested in Samson introducing the two clients he’d already signed, the baby-faced teen boy that I recognized as a viral singing sensation on his left, and on his right, the jet-setting It Girl in her late twenties who was making quite the name for herself as an indie actress. Both of whom wore identical expressions of boredom until it was their turn to speak.

Rohan tossed the salve back on the table with a clatter. “What’s King playing at?”

I gnawed on my lip. “Signing a YouTuber hardly lines up with unleashing the apocalypse or enslaving humanity as his minions.”

Drio snarled a ferocious torrent of Italian swear words. I was both impressed and unsettled by how long he could go without pausing for air.

“What if we’re wrong?” I asked. “If he’s not a demon?”

“That’s why we don’t assume anything until we have irrefutable evidence. We also don’t want our assumptions to make us lazy or complacent,” Rohan said.

“Or tip our hand. Even if our gut screams ‘demon,’ we play it smart,” Drio added.

“Got it.” I scratched at my skin, demon death goo flaking off me, revealing a bumpy red rash.

“Library. Ten minutes,” Rohan said.

A shower imperative, I sprinted up the wide, curving staircase to my bedroom on the top floor. Barely a month in to my new living arrangements, moved out of my parents’ house for the first time in my life, and I’d yet to choose the paint color to replace the bleh beige adorning my walls. Though the furniture was decent enough dark wood, and at least I had my own tiny bathroom.

The sole personal touch I’d given the room was to hang my large framed poster of Gregory Hines caught by the camera in mid-tap step, his face lit up in glee. I hadn’t gotten around to unpacking two of the five Rubbermaids I’d carted my belongings over in, but the other three did a pretty epic job exploding out over every surface. Folding and organizing were for saps. I preferred hunting and rooting, the thrill of the never-ending treasure hunt for my personal belongings.

Stripping down, I tossed my clothes in the trash and stepped under the hot spray in the small black-and-white tiled bathroom. I used to go through clothes because I hated the visual reminder of bad decisions when wearing hook-up togs more than once. At least the wear and tear of killing monsters left me with no regrets. Though demon kills required lube job levels of skin maintenance.

To celebrate the Executive sending me to Prague, I yanked on the T-shirt Leonie had bought for me. Tight, bright, and hot pink, its glittering silver letters proclaimed “50% boobs. 50% sarcasm. 100% new breed of hunter.”

What’s a girl without a tagline?

Technically, Leo wasn’t supposed to know about the Brotherhood. The Mafia were a bunch of gossipy soccer moms compared to the code of silence the Brotherhood demanded. While DSI–David Security International–a.k.a. the global security firm the Brotherhood ran had a respected rep in high powered circles, it was a closely guarded secret that its man candy employees were demon hunters. Or that demons even existed.

Scrunching some mousse into my hair, I snagged my hair drier for a quick blow so I didn’t head downstairs dripping.

Part of our secrecy was maintained by the fine job the Brotherhood did, and part of it was due to natural human desire to explain away anything vaguely monstrous with “rational” explanations, i.e. any reason that wasn’t supernatural. Humans’ determination to live within our comfort zones was not to be underestimated. It worked in the Brotherhood’s favor.

My three-minute patience of hair drying achieved, I threw on some eye make-up.

I would never have told Leo about any of it if our reunion meeting after about a year and a half of radio silence–mostly stemming from the bad place I’d been in after high school–hadn’t come with the mind-blowing discovery that she was half-goblin. Goblins were tricksters and smooth talkers, so combined with the sperm donor’s glamouring ability to present as human, it left Leo’s mom thinking (bitterly and to this day) that she’d succumbed to the charms of a very handsome rogue for an unforgettable one night stand.

Leo, who only had a human form and no glamour abilities of her own, hadn’t enlightened her mom. Luckily, her sole visible redcap goblin features were a propensity to white chin hair, shortness, and a fascination for fussy jewels that had never made sense in our teens. Otherwise, her long straight red hair, funky style, and incredible confidence were pure awesome woman.

Given Leo’s half-demon status, she was well aware of Rasha. Though she’d been shocked to find out that I, of all people, was the first chick to be among their number.

I glanced back into the bedroom at my alarm clock. Thirty seconds to spare to Rohan’s deadline. I hustled out of my room, finger-combing my still damp curls, anxious for this meeting with Rohan and Drio and the specifics of my cover assignment.

Forrest Chang, the film’s director and a huge Fugue State Five fan, had invited Rohan to write the theme song. Meanwhile, I was going in under the guise of Rohan’s groupie, a role that Rohan was having altogether too much fun lording over me. Supposedly this cover story allowed him to stick close to me as I gained Samson’s attention, but I had my doubts. This wasn’t the eighteenth century and I wasn’t chattel.

Drio was posing as part of Rohan’s entourage without the backstory of blowing him on a regular basis, so why couldn’t that be true for me as well? Go for fiction not imitating life. By the time I was halfway down the stairs, I’d resolved to bring this matter up at the start of our meeting.

The front door slammed open and Kane stormed in, bleeding from a gash to his temple. Japanese-Canadian and silky-hot with a tendency to shirtlessness, he could have been naked right now and all anyone would have noticed was the anger rolling off him in waves.

I came to a screeching halt.

Kane raked a hand through his spiky black hair. “Swear to God, babyslay, I will kill him myself, he pulls this shit again.”

My heart sinking, I braced a hand on the wooden bannister, polished to a high gleam. “How many?”

“One. But it was Abyzou, the psycho spawn. She’d cornered a pregnant woman in a parking lot and was working her evil mojo to cause a miscarriage.” He held up his hand at the anxious eep I emitted. “Breeder and fetus are fine.”

“Is Ari okay?”

“Your twin is untouched. I, on the other hand?” He tapped his wound. “My perfection is marred.” He’d heal quickly like all Rasha did, but Kane loved his dramatic flare.

I exhaled hard, then trotted down the stairs, gesturing at his temple. “Did Abyzou do that?”

“Yep. Compounded by your idiot brother. He clocked me when I stopped him from getting involved.” Kane’s jaw tightened. “If I hadn’t been worried about protecting his ass, I might have taken Abyzou down. As it was, she got away.”

A faint sheen of purple iridescence on his forearm caught the light, indicating his arms were still coated in traces of the salt-based poison that was his magic power. Toxic to demons.

Toxic to humans, too. I couldn’t touch him until he’d showered.

“What about the pregnant woman?”

“She thought it was some crazy person attacking. Ari and I distracted the demon enough for the breeder to get into her minivan and bolt.” Kane took a steadying breath, clearly trying to get his anger under control. “I can’t keep babysitting him.”

“I know.” My stomach knotted itself up. Ever since Ari had been abducted and tortured by a powerful demon a few weeks back, my heroically-inclined twin had become a one-man, monster-slaying vigilante. Sure, he’d trained his whole life for this, but since his Rasha ceremony had gone horribly wrong–inducting me instead of him in the surprise of the century–he hadn’t yet been officially made a hunter and therefore, didn’t have any magic power. Without that magic, Ari could wound but not kill.

Though he could piss the demons off enough to end up a tragic statistic himself.

In a rare display of cold calculation, my brother was exploiting Kane’s feelings for him, dysfunctional as they were. With or without backup, Ari wasn’t stopping and Kane was able to make the killing strikes. Payback had twisted my usually rational twin and I was terrified for his well-being.

Kane stomped up the stairs.

I rubbed my temples, sympathetic to Kane’s frustration.

“Navela.” Rabbi Abrams, Ari’s mentor for his entire life, touched my shoulder.

“You heard Kane?”

He nodded, motioning me into the kitchen. Rain hit the windows, wind scattering leaves off the trees.

I took a seat at the island, knowing from previous conversations that he’d speak in his own time. True to form, the rabbi boiled water for his pot of Darjeeling in silence.

The rabbi reached for a large mug. Slowly. No surprise since the guy was ancient. More wrinkles than anything else, he was clad in one of his many black suits, a kippah perched on his thinning white hair. He’d trimmed his beard, which was good since it had been straying into ZZ Top territory.

The only thing that ever seemed to radically change about Rabbi Abrams was his scent, ranging from mothballs to lavender and today… I surreptitiously sniffed him. Lemon candy drops.

“Ready for Prague?” he asked.

“You bet.” Ever my helpful self, I retrieved the honey kept in his special cabinet of “rabbi-only” cups, kettle, and kosher tea supplies.

He raised a shaggy eyebrow at me. I was growing on him.

“My mitzvah for the day,” I said, referring to the Hebrew word for a good deed. Like certain Hebrew words, it probably had some other literal meaning.

The kettle clicked off. Rabbi Abrams poured the hot water over the tea diffuser in his cup, his hands strong and steady despite his age. “A mitzvah should not come with expectation of reciprocity.”

“Then consider my next question totally unrelated. When will you be inducting Ari?”

After a ton of begging and my capitulation to mild blackmail, Rabbi Abrams had confirmed that yes, Ari did indeed still have initiate status. Thing is, re-running the traditional induction ceremony on Ari after I’d been inducted hadn’t worked. That’s why the Brotherhood believed they’d made a mistake about Ari’s status in the first place. With each passing day that my brother remained an initiate and not a full Rasha, the greater the risk that Ari got seriously hurt.

I was worried that my existence had screwed things up, magically speaking, and now the Brotherhood had no clue how to make my twin a hunter.

I leaned on the counter fidgeting, but the rabbi waited for his tea to steep before answering me. “I am not sure that official permission to try alternate methods of inducting Ari as Rasha will be forthcoming,” he said.

“You’re picking your words rather carefully there.” I frowned. “Please. Be straight with me. Did you ask the Executive?”

“It would not be a good idea at this time to seek authorization on this matter.” He blew on the steaming liquid before taking a sip.

Clamping my lips shut against my first impulse to shout, “Why the fuck not?” I took a deep breath, forcing myself to lay out my argument in a calm, logical form. “Ari won’t be deterred and this won’t end well.”

The rabbi took another sip. “There is someone I want you to meet in Prague.”

Huh? “Who?”

“Dr. Esther Gelman. She’s attending an environmental physics conference there.” He waved at the miscellaneous drawer across the room. “Get me a pen.”

Biddable me, I did as I was told.

He scribbled down Dr. Gelman’s name and email but held on to the paper a moment longer. “Send her this message. ‘Golem. Alea iacta est.’” He added that to the paper.

I took it from him. “What does it mean?”

“‘The die is cast.’ Request a meeting. Do not let her say no.”

I stuffed the paper in my pocket. “Uh. Okay. Why am I emailing a scientist about a fictional clay monster? Why don’t you do it?”

“She doesn’t like the Brotherhood.” Well, we had that in common. “This isn’t about the folkloric version of the golem,” he said. “It’s the meaning as it appears in the Tehilim. Psalms 139:16. An unformed body.”

Like Ari in regards to being Rasha. Rabbi Abrams wasn’t ignoring me. He was investigating a way to induct my twin that would not be sanctioned by the Brotherhood. “Way to work the loophole, Rabbi.”

He gave me an enigmatic smile. “Ari remains my responsibility. I do not take that lightly,” he said. “Get Esther to meet. She will know if there is a way.”

“Who is she?”

“That is not for me to share.” He pulled a tiny glass bottle out of his pocket, like one used for aromatherapy oils. It was half-full of some brown liquid. “I need your ring.”

I held out my right hand with my Rasha ring worn on my index finger. It was a fat gold band with an engraving of a hamsa, a palm-shaped design with two symmetrical thumbs meant to ward off the evil eye. The single open eye etched into the middle of the design boasted a tiny blue sapphire iris. Standard issue. Trust an all-male Brotherhood to ignore the opportunity for a variety of gemstones that could be accessorized at will.

As a hunter, I was incapable of removing the ring. Believe me, I’d tried.

The first night I’d met Rohan, his identical ring had been the only proof that he wasn’t a demon. Though if demon power was based on arrogance alone, Rohan would hands down be one of the most dangerous beings to ever live.

Rabbi Abrams unscrewed the cap, flipping the bottle upside down against the pad of his index finger. I tried not to flinch at the feel of his giant old man knuckles as he took my hand and smeared the liquid around my ring, speaking a couple words in Hebrew. The scent of cloves filled the air.

The gold warmed against my skin and from one blink to the next, the rich color leeched to a hard titanium. The hamsa engraving and sapphire iris disappeared, replaced by tiny diamonds encircling the band. “Can I touch it?”

He nodded so I brushed my thumb across the band. There was no sense of any of the diamonds, though I felt the hamsa and iris.

“You glamoured it,” I said.

He returned the bottle to his pocket. “You need to be able to get close to Samson without him seeing the true ring. Just make sure he doesn’t touch it. Anyone who does will see through the illusion.”

“Got it. Is there a time limit on the glamour?”

“No. I’ll remove it once you return from Prague.” He picked up his tea, indicating our meeting was at an end. “And Nava?”

I paused at the doorway, half turning back. “Yes?”

“Do as Rohan and Drio command. Show the Brotherhood how well you fit in.”

I had to unclench my teeth to answer him in the affirmative. Playing nice meant accepting the role of groupie that I’d been designated and that power dynamic did not sit well with me. But if the alternative would cause any trouble in terms of seeing Ari become Rasha, what choice did I have?

I had no idea what to do. Betray my principles or betray my brother? Either my gut-level certainty about what was best for my well-being or that of what was best for my twin’s was in jeopardy. I had no idea how to win on both fronts.

I trudged down the hallway, passing airy open rooms with detailed crown molding and gleaming inlaid wood floors. Rohan and Drio were probably stewing in the library waiting for my tardy self to arrive. The faintest hint of furniture polish scented the air, lending a bright note to the decidedly bleak choice I had to make.

Ari had held my hair out of my face the first time I’d thrown up, covered for me when I’d snuck out, and before this Rasha mix-up, never once cut me out of his confidences. I may not have always been the perfect sibling, but I’d lucked into having someone who was always on my side.

Now that the tables had turned, could I really throw Ari to the wolves?