Chapter 2

Forty-five minutes later, I huddled on top of the closed toilet seat in my ensuite bathroom sucking the cheesy coating off Doritos while replaying my actions in grisly Technicolor. Even with all the lights off, the room was as bright and insistent as Martha Stewart's smile. A dusty Costco-sized sanitary pad box lay open on the counter-the hiding place for my secret stash of arterial clogging happiness.

Now, though, the chips were less illicit joy and more bite-sized snacks of self-loathing.

I stuck my hand into the bag for another nacho, careful not to crinkle it and give myself away. Hard to say what had been the highlight of that little disaster: drinking the ceremonial wine, vomiting, or the wardrobe malfunction that had released my left boob into the world and caused my dad to strain his back jumping in front of me to block the view.

Go me.

Someone rapped on the door. Chip in my mouth like a pacifier, I froze, listening to the raised voices from downstairs-the rabbi yelling, my mother cajoling, and my father reasoning. That left Ari, and right now I was too chickenshit to face him. How could saying sorry cover wrecking the most important moment of his life?

"I know you're eating Doritos," he called from outside the door. "Let me in."

"Nope." I swallowed down the now-mushy chip and gave a lusty groan. "I'm making a hate crime."

"If that were true, you'd be running the water because you're paranoid people will learn you have an anus." He jiggled the knob. "Let me in."

I glared at the tap, assigning blame to the inanimate object for failing to carry out its part of my brilliant plan. Dumping the bag down on the counter with a sigh, I washed orange nacho residue off my hands before I tightened the belt on the fuzzy housecoat now wrapped around me, and unlocked the door.

"I'm so, so sorry, Ari," I said, hanging my head. My fraternal twin deserved all the success and more. Ari never treated me like I was "less than" in any way, not even once. "I know you have no reason to believe me but-"

"Shut up," he said, brushing past me in his navy-fitted suit. Very bespoke, except for the tired slump of his shoulders.

He lowered himself down on to the edge of the bathtub, knocking one of the many bottles of citrusy shampoo into the tub. With one hand braced on the mosaic shower tiles for support, he removed his kippah, tossing it onto the counter where its gold-embroidered Star of David winked among the chaos of makeup and hair pins.

"Damn, that itches." He scratched his blond head with a relieved sigh, then jerked his chin at the Doritos bag still in my hand. "You gonna share?"

I locked the door, returned to my throne seat, and held the chips out between us.

We sat there in companionable silence, munching through the party-sized bag.

"These are so disgusting," Ari said, stuffing about ten of them in his mouth.

I reached over and brushed orange crumbs off his suit. "Careful, bubeleh. Wouldn't want you to get dirty. Oh, if the elders knew that their healthy-eating chosen one was up here taking years off his life."

"Eh," he said, spraying chips. "I'd just blame you, o defiler of innocents."

"Useful having an evil twin, isn't it?" My tone was light; my stomach twisted.

He wiped his mouth. "Don't give yourself that much credit. You're not evil. Just misguided."

I drew myself up to my full height. "That's a terrible thing to say."

We finished the bag, then elbowed each other for first rights of tap water. A quick sip later and I slid onto the brown cork floor, bloated and happy. Well, as happy as I could be.

"I don't know how you're not puking given you were still drunk an hour ago," Ari said.

"These chips have magic properties. Plus, I got it all out of my system on the carpet."

He shuddered. "Don't remind me. I think Mom is angrier about that than your spectacular entrance. She was a fairly impressive mottled red when I left her."

"Merlot or tomato?"

"Nava Red," my brother replied. "A special shade named in honor of you."

"Why were you doing the ritual anyway?" I snapped. "The induction is tomorrow. The sixth."

"Or, today, the sixth."

Shit! I hugged my knees into my chest. "Ari-"

He stood up, one hand raised to cut me off. "No. You really want to apologize? Take a shower and get dressed so that I have one person who wants to be at this ceremony for me. Not for status or whatever the hell I am to those people down there."

"Ace," I gasped, "isn't this what you want?"

He affixed the kippah back on his head, staring at his reflection in the mirror above the sink for a long moment. "I've never had a chance to decide whether I wanted it or not. We were five days old when they determined I was an initiate. I didn't get a vote."

We'd both seen the photo of our parents' stunned faces when a somewhat younger, yet still astonishingly ancient Rabbi Abrams had visited my mother-a descendent of King David-to check Ari out. Since the Brotherhood is top secret, my parents weren't clued in to the true nature of the rabbi's visit until after he'd determined Ari as an initiate: a chosen demon hunter. The photo in question had been taken after a lot of explanations and convincing that yes, this was all real, and yes, their son had a hell of an important destiny.

I went into my bedroom to grab some clean clothes to put on after my shower.

Back in the day, and by day I'm talking Old Testament, this shepherd called David took out the giant Goliath for King Saul. While that landed David his place in history, there was more to him than his crazy rock-slinging skills.

I don't know if David was an adrenaline junkie or a major do-gooder but when King Saul was later possessed by a demon, David was all "leave it to me," and cast the hell spawn out. Guess David figured demon removal was a good public service to keep up, because once he became king around 1010 B.C.E., he gathered up his buddies to continue the work. Kick-ass Jews. Awesome.

Though it had never made sense why he called his hunters Rasha-the Hebrew word for "wicked."

I tossed my clothes over the hook affixed to the back of the bathroom door. "Talk to me."

My brother had spent his entire life studying and training in preparation for the day he was formally inducted into the Brotherhood. I cocked an eyebrow at Ari, annoyed when he shrugged off my question. "Don't pretend you aren't excited to see what magic power you'll end up with."

His eyes lit up for a second. "Telekinesis or light bender. Those would be cool." He jerked a thumb at the shower and I obediently ran the tap, waiting for the water to hit blistering temperature.

"Slime generator or asphyxiation via lethal ass gas, more like."

"Ha. Ha." Ari gnawed on his bottom lip.

"You want out?" I cracked my knuckles. "You could totally take all three of them downstairs. I'll help."

He shrugged, the motion bunching the dark fabric around his muscles. "I don't know what else I'd do. What else I'm good for."

I poked his bicep. "Kill the pity party, Mr. Perfect GPA. I'm sure between your chem major and biology minor some giant pharmaceutical company somewhere will have a small fortune and loads of interesting problems for you." I wasn't jealous. He and I didn't roll that way. He may have been chosen and wicked smart but the only thing that bugged me about him was that he had prettier lashes than me. It was always the boys with those camel eyes. So unfair.

I tested the water temperature, shaking droplets off my hand until satisfied with its magma level of hot, and pulled the knob up to send the water cascading full blast through the shower head.

Ari mussed my hair. "You're gonna do something great some day too," he said. I smacked his hand off of my head. "You just need to find your thing." He rushed that second sentence as if hoping I wouldn't remember that I'd found my thing a long time ago and the chances of finding something else I loved as much were pretty slim.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." I pushed him toward the door. "Go keep them from cutting me out of the will. I'll be there in ten. The picture of respectability."

Ari snorted. "Don't strain yourself. I'll settle for clean." He sniffed me, fanning in front of his face with a grimace. "Screwing hobos again?"

"College boys. Same, same." I reached for the belt of my housecoat.

He unlocked the door, half-twisting back to me. "Would you care? If I didn't do it?"