The Grimrose Path

Chapter 1

Life was a trick.

That was what it boiled down to in the end; life was one big trick, one huge April Fools’. You might think that could be a bad thing . . . depending on whether you were on the giving or receiving end. But that didn’t matter as much as you’d think it would. It was what it was. At the very end of it, we all ended up on both sides. The universe was fair that way, because everyone, without exception, had something to learn. We were all naughty in one way or another.

And tricks were lessons in disguise. They taught you right from wrong, safe from dangerous, bad seafood salad from good seafood salad. Have you ever had bad seafood salad? That’s the worst eighteen hours of your life and a lesson you’ll never forget. Have you ever put an old lady in the hospital after mugging her for her Social Security check? The lesson regarding that, you might not live long enough to remember or forget.

Life was a trick, a trick was a lesson, and I was a teacher—the majority of the time. I didn’t teach in a school. The world was my school, and I had a zero-tolerance policy. I taught the teachable. And the others? Those who couldn’t or wouldn’t learn? What’s a woman to do in that situation?

Apply a “Darwin’s rules” attitude and let the pieces fall where they may.

My name is Trixa, and I’m not a woman. I’m female, most definitely that, but I’m not precisely a woman. Trixa was one of the names I’d had in my lifetime, one of many—we con artists had quite a few.This one though . . . This one was one of my favorites, because I was a trickster, born and bred of one of many trickster races. It was why I enjoyed the name so much. I’d rubbed who I was in the face of my enemies for the past ten years and not once had they seen past a simple name. Demons, some were stupid and some were bright, but all were arrogant, which made them blind. The same went for angels. As they were flip sides to the same coin, it wasn’t surprising. And humans . . . Please, don’t even get me started on humans. They were the entire reason we tricksters existed. Or since we had predated them, I guess we chose them as a reason to exist. Those of the supernatural world never were quite as much fun to fool, to put in their place, and life could become fairly pointless without a purpose. Everyone needed a purpose.

Without a purpose, why get up in the morning? Why eat? Why not just meld with the earth that made you and wait to turn into fertilizer? Someone could grow some nice marigolds in you. I liked marigolds, but they weren’t much of a career choice.

Taking humans down a notch or ten, that was a purpose all right, and damn entertaining too. Not that I ever received a shiny red apple for educating the masses, but taking pride—and more than occasional excessive glee—in my work, that was enough. Although jewelry would’ve been nice too. I liked jewelry better than marigolds.

A variety of tricksters were loose in the world—pucks, also known as Pan, Robin Goodfellow, Hob, and so on. They were one race of identical brown-haired, green-eyed cocky immortals. All male—in appearance anyway. A person would need several PhDs in biology to get a handle on their actual reproduction, but you didn’t need a GED to get a handle on anything else regarding them, physically speaking. Sexually speaking . . . not speaking at all because it was rude to with your mouth full. They not only cowrote the Kama Sutra, but they posed for it as well. That’s all I’m saying.

There was my partner at the bar, Leo, better known as Loki, who was a god first and foremost, and only a trickster because he excelled at it and enjoyed it, but not because he’d been born one. His was a calling, not a birthright. There were also those among us who were just spirit . . . energy, gossamer molecules strung together like a kite string, no more solid than the wind, and even I had trouble understanding them. And kicking back to have a margarita with them to talk work, that was completely out of the question.

Then there was my kind—shape-shifters. We were hundreds, thousands of legends—Coyote, Kitsune, Kokopelli, Nasreddin, Raven, Maui, Veles—too many to name. Most people had long forgotten those names, but we were still only a Wiki away. We weren’t immortal, but we didn’t have to worry about watching our cholesterol either. I’d been around to see the sky darken half a world away when Pompeii had died. My brother and I had watched it and for a moment we were put in our place. We had held hands and felt an unfamiliar feeling of mortality sharp and cold cut through us as the sky turned from blue to black. We could trick all we wanted, but nature itself would always have the last laugh.

But now? Now I was still a trickster, but a shape-shifter no more. I was a thirty-one-year-old human—I was actually all human races on Earth. I had done that always. Genes speak to genes on a level people can’t begin to detect, and if I were all people, then I went into every situation with the tiniest of edges, my foot in the door. It had been more helpful back in the day . . . when family, clan, tribe, had mattered to a constantly warring people. They were still constantly warring, but the genes mattered a lot less now. And that was a good development for humanity in general, but I still tried to keep that edge.

While I was all races, two did rise to the top. That’s what people saw. Eyes I’d admired the last time I’d been on the Japanese Islands, the mouth that was a fond memory of the years I’d spent in Africa, and wildly cork-screwed black curls and skin that were a mixture of both places. I’d spent a lot of time rethinking that hair every morning when I fought the good fight with it and usually had my ass kicked and my brush broken. Ah, well, who the hell was I to say what it should do anyway?

Did all of that make me a romance heroine who had men flinging themselves at my feet to protect my dainty foot from a puddle? Carrying all my groceries like I was a fairy princess with a wet manicure? Hell, no. It had them tilting their heads trying to figure me out. People liked to label things. I puzzled them, which was good. People needed to be puzzled, curious, unsure. That’s what kept you alive in this world. It was what made life interesting.

No, I wasn’t beautiful. I chose this body. I made it. Why would I want to be beautiful? Fields of wildflowers were beautiful. Waterfalls were beautiful. Secluded beaches were beautiful. Size-zero vacant-eyed and vacant-stomached runway models were beautiful . . . at least that’s what society told us, but society had a vacant brain to match those vacant eyes. Not one of those things, vacant or otherwise, could put a pointed heel of a boot through a demon’s stomach and a bullet in his scaly forehead. I could. I was unique.

I could not . . . would not be tagged, identified, labeled, or stamped.

Unless it was by the fashion industry. I scowled at the sweatpants and T-shirt I was wearing as I came down the stairs that led to my apartment over my bar, Trixsta. The sign in the window was red neon to match everything else red in my life. Did that mean I wore a lot of red clothing? Maybe. But more than that, it meant I signed my work with the color—names changed; colors never did. I applied that signature to all my work, and I still did my work, my true work—human or not.

And Las Vegas was the perfect place to do it—a city of deceit and sin. It was a wonderland for both tricksters and demons. We did have demons aplenty, but as far as I knew, there were only two tricksters here currently: me and the one fiddling with the television.

Leo turned the TV on and wiped a film of beer off the screen. My bar was small; the brains of my clientele even smaller. It was the only excuse to waste good beer—or mediocre beer with good beer prices. If you couldn’t tell the difference, that was your lesson for the day. A trick a day kept boredom away, but the thought of making money off the drunken or idiotic couldn’t cheer me now, not with what I had to do.

“Exercise,” I muttered, and then repeated it because it was simply that horrifying. “Exercise.” I glared at Leo as if it were his fault. It wasn’t, but he was the only one around to blame, so I took the opportunity. “I have to go run, lift weights, and do other things banned by the Geneva Convention. If your Internet steroids arrive, don’t go wild and take them all at once.”

With his long black hair pulled into a tight braid, copper skin, and eyes as dark as his hair, he looked pure American Indian, and he would look that way for four or five more years—but for one exception. That exception showed itself right then. Leo disappeared in front of me and where he had stood flapped a raven who croaked, “Must be jelly. Jam don’t shake like that.” I thought about swinging at him, but I settled for retying the knot on my sweatpants. Lenny or, as we called him in raven form, Lenore—Poe, you couldn’t avoid it—landed on the bar. “Want fries with that shake?” he added as he preened a feather.

“You’ll be the one who’s fried and served up with mashed potatoes and cornbread stuffing when I get back,” I promised, enjoying the vengeful mental image. “I’ll make you the early-Thanksgiving special.”

If birds could snort, Lenny would have. At one time, three months ago, Leo might’ve been able to give me something to think about. After all, he’d been a god; I wasn’t. But both of us were human, more or less, now, at least for the next four or five years, thanks to my showing off and an artifact who thought the experience might do Leo some good. For me, there were no shape-shifting powers, no powers of any kind except a natural biological defense against telepathy and empathy and the ability to tell my own païen kind when I saw them no matter what shape they wore. Leo was one up on me. He was stuck in human or bird form, and it was my fault. I’d drained my batteries by overusing my powers to take down the killer of my brother in an extremely showy and vengeful way. I wasn’t sorry. The bastard had deserved it. He’d killed my family, my only sibling. For what I did to him, things dismemberment-loving demons themselves would’ve applauded . . . no, I wasn’t sorry. I would never be sorry for that. I’d only regret I couldn’t do it a few more times.

Oddly enough, even after that show, a sentient artifact that I’d been using as a bargaining chip against Heaven and Hell had thought at the time that I was a good influence on Leo/Loki. The Light of Life, the artifact, had decided he should stick around with me for those four years it would take me to recover my shape-shifting abilities. As it was more powerful than Leo and I combined, it didn’t ask us for permission either. It neutered him—on the god part at least. The rest of him, I assumed, was in working condition. Although as I had to exercise, it would’ve been nice for Leo to have suffered a slight bit more. We’d see how many funny quips about my weight he’d make while buying Internet steroids and Viagra.

Not that my humiliation stopped there. My mama had laughed herself sick when I told her anyone or anything thought I was a good influence. Then again, Leo had been a very bad boy in his day. He had once wanted to end the world—Ragnarok, the Norse end of days—and that had just been for kicks and a way to waste a boring afternoon. But that had been when he was Loki, a long time and a lot of raging darkness ago. He was different now. So many say they want to change; he was one of the few I’d seen do it. He was one of the few with a will stronger than the shadows that had filled him up, shadows that were there still but leashed. Is it nobler to be born good or to be born on the farthest end of the bloody spectrum and have chosen to be good? When I looked at Leo, it was an easy question to answer.

Ancient artifact or not, he would’ve stayed with me, to help if worse came to worst. He was that way. I would’ve done it for him if the situation were reversed. Friends . . . You didn’t take them for granted. But that didn’t mean I had to listen to his jokes about my ass. That was the great thing about being a shape-shifter. Calories? Fat grams? Whatever. Turn them into extra hair or an extra inch in height or shed them as pounds of water. Or in the other direction, if you wanted to be a two-hundred-pound coyote with the voice of an avalanche, take the extra you needed from the dirt, rock, or the moisture-soaked air around you.

But now I was human, and had discovered living off diner food. . . . It was less than a block away; what could I do? I packed on five pounds in two weeks. She Who Would Not Be Labeled had become She Who Must Find the Nearest Gym. Leo, with his damn male metabolism, was still sucking down all that was fried with no signs of a potbelly as of yet.

Men. I hated men sometimes.

But I hated demons more. And as I ran down the sidewalk toward the grubby gym seven or eight blocks away, I got to prove it.

I kept a slow and steady pace. It was February now and still not too bad. When it came to summer, I’d drive to the gym, seven blocks or not. If you ran in the Vegas summer heat, you were either insane, suicidal, or a fire elemental out for a stroll. I ran past porn stores, liquor stores, more porn stores, a tiny car lot . . . and that’s where I stopped. I saw the blinding flash of a grin and puppy dog brown eyes, man’s best friend, as a perfectly tanned hand patted the cloth top of a black convertible as the mouth moved a mile a minute, pouring like the best caramel syrup over a pudgy tourist. A car salesman. A used-car salesman. If you’re after someone’s soul, you should be a little more imaginative with your disguises than that.

Not that this guy was after someone’s soul. I usually didn’t interfere there. That was between Heaven and Hell and that tug-of-war known as humanity that lay between them. They had some reasonable enough rules set up. First, you had to be of age—mature mentally; no trading your soul for a Tonka Toy or a pony. These days that tended to mean you were old enough to drink, vote, and die. Second, you couldn’t trade your soul for a righteous and selfless act. You couldn’t trade it to save the polar bears or stop world poverty or even save your child. Hell and demons either weren’t allowed or simply couldn’t do good, no matter how many souls they received in exchange. Which made sense—evil did not beget good. Bad luck for the polar bears.

No, Heaven and Hell could play all the games they wanted. As one puck had first said a long time ago, caveat emptor. Buyer beware. Grown-up boys and girls should know better and if they didn’t, well, Darwin had something to say about that too.

But this sleazy guy—demons and pucks both loved the used-car-salesman front—wasn’t after a soul. I could tell by the especially bright glint in his gaze. He was after some old-fashioned fun. Ripping, shredding, tearing a man to pieces and if his soul whizzed upward like a sky-rocket, I doubt the demon much cared. Maybe he wasn’t hungry. Demons ate souls. God no longer sustained them with his light and love and Lucifer was fallen himself. He couldn’t. Demons had to feed themselves and Hell was nothing but one big pantry. But demons enjoyed other things than a light snack. They had hobbies the same as anyone else. Theirs simply happened to be killing. To a one, killing was their one true passion. Trading for souls was entertaining and good nutrition, but killing someone . . .

Souls were a McDonald’s hamburger, but killing for sheer butchery alone was an all-day ride at the amusement park. This demon was going for the loop-to-loop roller coaster all the way. It was Sunday and the lot was closed, but he had lured some dumb-ass tourist lost from the main strip into the lot. The road to Hell is paved with a lot of things . . . some of them Hyundais. I sighed and hopped the rope that acted as an imaginary barrier between sidewalk and lot to follow the two men inside the tiny two-cubicle office. The shades were down. In Vegas, winter or summer, the shades were always down or that purple couch you bought six months ago would now be lavender, and a pale lavender at that.

Rather the same shade as the face of the tourist who was panicked and struggling to escape the one hand that held him by the neck. He was bent backward over a desk, his flailing arms knocking papers and salesman of the year awards onto the floor, and sometimes . . . just once in a while, you did get annoyed with the gullible. But you were more annoyed with one damn stupid demon who had set up shop literally six blocks from your territory. A human had been running this place three days ago, a potbellied pig-shaped man with a comb-over and enough nose hair to trim into bonsai trees. That alone marked him as nondemon, but he was gone now and a demon had moved into his place.

Demons were so easy to spot it wasn’t even close to a challenge. This one had shiny blond hair, soulful brown eyes, not one but two dimples, and he threw off sex appeal by the bucketfuls—plus a manly I-could-be-your-best-bro, bro. He would appeal to men, women, and little old ladies. His charisma covered the spectrum. As I had made this body, so did demons make theirs. And they always liked theirs bright and shiny as a new penny. It was bait after all, part of the lure.

“Six blocks.” I pulled my gun, a Smith & Wesson 500, from the holster in the small of my back. That’s why I kept my T-shirt loose. To cover the toys. “You set up your perch here”—I waved my other hand at the room around us—“sniffing for the innocent, the unwary, and the idiotic like this poor schmuck, and you do it six blocks from my place. My home. My territory.” He gaped at me. While I hadn’t bothered to find out about him before now, neither had he bothered to do the same regarding me—a little sloppy on my part, a little fatal on his. The sloppiness stopped now. I blew his head off before he had time to blink his eyes or blink back to Hell.

He shimmered for a second into a man-sized brownish-green lizard with dragon wings, dirty glass teeth, a once-narrow but now-shattered reptilian head, and oozing eye sockets. The Smith had taken care of that. I doubt his eyes had been that same soft and soulful brown anyway. Then he was a pool of black goo on the worn carpet of the office, and while I felt for the cleaning lady, I had security tapes to wipe, a tourist to toss out on the street, and a gym to get to before all the elliptical trainers were taken. The tourist rolled to the floor, gurgled, and passed out either from lack of oxygen or lack of intestinal fortitude (balls for the more succinct of us). I wasn’t disappointed. A little judgmental, but not disappointed. It would actually make things easier on me.

“Good old what’s-his-name. I’m surprised he lived to this millennium.” The voice came from behind me. A familiar one, not in a good way either. I looked over my shoulder to see Eligos—“Call-me-Eli,” he would always say with a grin that would suck the oxygen out of a room and half the brain cells out of your head. If you were human. Truly human, not just temporarily human. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t tell he was something to see all the same. Damned and damn hot, what a combo. He was also very probably the smartest demon I’d come across—what Hollywood likes to call a triple threat. Demons themselves were afraid of Hollywood, the only place where humans were more frightening than any Hell-spawn.

“You can’t even remember his name?” I kept the gun loose and easy in my grip and blew a curl that had escaped my ponytail holder out of my eyes. “Some brotherly love there.”

“Would you have me sing ‘Danny Boy’?” He was sitting on the other desk, one knee up, chin propped in his hand, his hazel eyes cheerful—if bright copper and green could be called hazel. “I have an amazing singing voice. I could’ve been Elvis. But I did eat him, so six of one, half a dozen of the other. You always have to be specific with the trades. Famous singer . . . good. Famous singer who doesn’t swell to the size of Shamu on fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches . . . better. But humans aren’t very detail oriented. Short attention span. They’re ‘Tomorrow is another day.’ Yadda yadda yadda.” He switched from leaning forward to leaning back and locked his hands across his stomach. “But all beside the point. I want to talk to you, Trixa.”

“Your attention span isn’t all that great either, Eli, or do you remember what happened to the last demon I ‘talked’ to?” I wasn’t talking about the one I’d just blown away. He’d barely been worth breaking stride for. I was talking about Solomon, my brother’s murderer.

He smiled, so flawless and white that an orthodontist would’ve fallen to the floor and genuflected before him and then no doubt offered him a blow job. Male or female, it wouldn’t matter. Humans are slaves to their hormones and no one manipulated hormones like demons. “Oh, I remember. I’ll remember that for all eternity. A: You made me piss a pair of Armani jeans that I was quite fond of. And B: You gave me the challenge that will occupy me to the end of time. Or the end of you, whichever comes first. It was worth losing the Light to you païen for that. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been challenged? Not since the Fall.” He shrugged and waffled a hand. “And even then, eh, we knew it was coming. Truthfully, I didn’t care if we ruled in Heaven or not. I just wanted to mix it up. Make a little trouble.” The smile was even brighter. “Because, Trixa, sweetheart, trouble is the only thing that makes existence bearable.”

I’d promised the Light, an artifact from even before païen time, to Eli if he verified that the demon I’d suspected killed my brother was the real deal. He delivered. I didn’t. I lied. Sue me. I’m a trickster. I lie, cheat, steal. . . . It all comes with the name. Although I did it typically to show a few humans the error of their wicked ways, make them a little better, and hopefully a whole lot smarter. But Eli hadn’t known that at the time. The same as everyone else, he’d thought me human. But when it all went down—the taking of the Light, an unbreakable shield that would protect païen from Heaven and Hell, neither of which much cared for us, and the passing of Solomon—Eli had seen little Trixa in a brand-new way. When I’d finished with Solomon, before he melted to the black of liquid sin, he’d been in so many pieces, it looked like it had been raining demon parts. I’d shape-changed my heart out on that one—not that I had a heart in regard to Kimano’s killer. But I had been something to see and be. Bear. Wolf. Fox. Spider. Crow. Dragon. Shark. All in one. And as I’d told Solomon then, when ranked, it went something like this: gods, then tricksters, and then a damn sight lower . . . demons. I’d told him and I’d proved it.

And Eli had been part of the audience.

As far as he knew, I was still trickster, shape-shifter, all that had made Solomon look as if he’d fallen into a wood chipper. I had my shielding against empathic and telepathic probes to keep Eli thinking I remained all that I’d been. I might be semihuman, but I’d die before I lost that last defense. I’d lost my offensive abilities for a while, but nature makes sure every creature keeps their defensive ones until there’s nothing left to defend. It was a fortunate thing too. While angels had telepathy, and a host of other annoying habits, demons had empathy. It made it so much easier to trade for a soul when you could feel exactly what a person desired.

I needed to keep Eli believing I was a trickster at the top of her form, because while the ranking went gods, tricksters, demons . . . humans were far enough below a high-level demon like Eli that you’d need binoculars to see them. I still had my trickster mind, but I had a vulnerable ninety-nine percent human body and that made things more difficult.

“Fine. If you want trouble”—I checked my watch—“I can spare five minutes. That should give me time to kill you, wipe the tapes, and maybe browse for a new car while I’m at it.” I smiled. I doubted I was too impressive a sight right then. I was an explosion of messy waves and curls anchored at the crown of my head with a ponytail holder. No makeup. The shirt that snarky Leo had had made for me that said SLAYER NOT LAYER on the front in the same bright red as my sweatpants, and a pair of beat-up sneakers. But Eli wasn’t seeing me now; he was seeing me then, and I had that going for me for a few months at least.

“Oh, I want trouble.” His eyes darkened and it wasn’t with anger. Some serial killers had horrific childhoods that had tangled sexual and homicidal urges into one black, strangling noose. Demons had only needed that one spat with Daddy to get them there. “But it’ll have to be another time. I want to talk to you about some demons.” He straightened, turning serious . . . as serious as Eli came anyway. “Dead demons. Quite a few dead demons.”

I tapped the barrel of my gun against my leg. “Really?” Now there was the best news I’d heard all day. “You want to throw a party at my place? I’ll even throw in an open bar for the occasion, because, sugar, I am that excited about it. How many demons are we talking about? Fifty? Because I can do a theme party. El Día de la Muerte de los Demonios. Death of Demons Day. Like Cinco de Mayo only with piñatas that have little horns and forked tails.”

“Cute. You’re so adorable when you’re tearing apart my rivals and blathering on about something to which you have no utter fucking clue.” He smiled again. This time the white teeth had turned to the mouthful of smoky quartz fangs. “But that’s fine. I’m happy to have this conversation later. Maybe I’ll go out and occupy the time by burning down a church. Barbecuing the faithful. I always enjoy that. A big side of coleslaw and I’ll be in hog you-know-where.” At the last word, he pointed a finger skyward and mock fired it.

Technically, that was Heaven’s problem, not mine, but despite the lying, cheating, and stealing part, I did have a conscience. Most tricksters did, as much as we’d deny it. That, combined with Eli not being in the mood for a little verbal sparring, was unusual enough to pique my interest.

I sat on the other desk and rested my feet on the large belly of the still-unconscious tourist. “Okay, grumpy hooves. I’ll give you those five minutes. Better yet, I’ll actually listen to you instead of killing you during them, because I’m sweet as cotton candy that way.” I checked my watch again and snapped my own fingers. “Go.”

And go he did. It wasn’t fifty demons who had died. It wasn’t even a hundred. That wouldn’t be that unusual. Demons killed païen for sport and tricksters killed demons because of it. All païen weren’t tricksters. There were vampires, wolves (werewolves to the fictionally inclined), nymphs, sprites, boggles, revenants, trolls, chubacabra, pukas, and thousands more. Some could take a demon and some couldn’t. So, if a hundred demons died in the past few years, that would be normal.

Nine hundred and fifty-six in six months was not normal.

I tapped my feet on the unconscious man’s belly and watched it ripple for a second while I processed the information. “All right. I see your point. Someone has been eating their Wheaties, taking their vitamins, and chugging a whole lot of Red Bull on top of that.” Inside I had more of a “holy shit, the sky is falling—don’t let the demon see you sweat” attitude going on. Something that could do that... “Maybe Upstairs has decided to do some old-fashioned smiting of the wicked and wanton. Let’s face it, you are both.”

His teeth became human again as the smile became smug. “True. Wicked and wanton and I stand by my record placing in the top ten in my particular region of Hell. But, no. Not even in the War—or the Sacred Scuffle, Police Action, Hallowed Hoedown, take your pick—we didn’t lose a third so many. Who do you think was most likely to rebel? The holiest of the holy? The Precious Moments Angels? The simpering weaklings who were no better than fluffy baby ducks with halos?” He snorted. “No. We were the warriors. God’s Righteous Fury. The Smiters, sweetheart, not the Smitees. Granted, we did pick up a slew of messenger angels, watcher angels—the minimum-wage pigeons who just did what they were told to do. And at that moment Lucifer was talking the loudest and God was letting the angels make their own choice. So we ended up with some weak-minded fluffy ducks after all. Like him.” He jerked his head at the stain on the floor. “But even Daffy there, to lose more than nine hundred of him in six months? That is...” He shook his head and slid on a pair of sunglasses. “I don’t know what that is. No one seems to.”

I still kept my gun out as he slid down from the desk and headed for the door. Demons, higher-level demons like Eligos, moved faster than humans did. While I’d given myself an Olympic-conditioned human body when creating it, Olympic or not, it was still human . . . and five pounds heavier. “It’s odd, impressive, and, all right, a little more than freaky, but why should I care? Whatever this is could kill every demon in Hell and it’s not going to get my ovaries in a twist. There’s a huge amount of ‘I don’t care’ in this general area.” I waved my free hand around me. “You kill my kind. I kill yours. This seems like a good thing for me and mine.” I wasn’t that stupid. If someone or something out there could do what Eli said, it was bad, bad news, because who knew when your kind might be . . .

“Next,” Eli finished for me as he opened the door, a few blond hairs glittering in the dark brown of his hair, and looked back over his shoulder. Posed rather. Demons did like the hot rides they’d created to be admired. “I don’t need to be an angel. I don’t need telepathy to read that thought. I only have to know how smart you are. And that’s almost as smart as you think.” He grinned. “Nice T-shirt, by the way. Can’t wait to prove it wrong.”

The door closed and I slowly holstered my gun. Almost a thousand demons in six months.

Not in my best year ever. While I didn’t care about the dead demons—no crying over spilt sociopaths—I did wonder what this thing might do if demons started to bore it. I made a mental list of anything and everything I knew of throughout history, mine and the world’s, that could do something like this.

It was a very short list.

I went on to my workout. Dead demons didn’t make exercise and conditioning unnecessary. An unknown creature making those dead demons made it only more necessary. Afterward I ran home to take a shower. I’d come to find out that some humans had the capacity to tolerate more annoyance and flat-out brutal torture than I’d ever given them credit for. . . . Having to genuinely earn your muscle—that was probably one of the most annoying things that I’d come across.

Give them credit? I was one of them now as much as I dragged my feet admitting it, trying to deny it with that minuscule one percent that wasn’t human. The second I forgot that I was now exactly what I appeared to be would be the second a demon would do to me what I’d done to so many of them.

Either way, human, trickster or both, I saluted Homo sapiens, respected them more than I ever had, but the gym shower? Even I had to draw the line somewhere. I kicked ass either with claws, paws, or one helluva fashionable boot, but you couldn’t convince me that mold didn’t have its own gods and demons, its own tricksters and unspeakable monsters. I know one clump bristled at me the first and last time I’d checked out the utilities. I recognized evil when I saw it. I saw it that day on seventies-era avocado green tile and some evil you simply had to walk away from. My bathroom was minutes away. I’d wait. And I’d gotten ridiculously fond of soap that smelled of oranges and felt like silk against my skin. I’d been human so many times throughout my life, but this one . . . this one . . . It had really taken. I wasn’t scared of much, but that came close to doing it.

Four more years. Who would I be then?

Me. I’d still be me. Tricking and laughing my way through life as always. Nothing was going to change that. I’d said that the past ten years. I could keep telling myself the same thing as long as I had to.

When I made it home, the closed sign was still on the door. I grumbled as I unlocked the door. Maybe Leo in his god days could make gold coins fly out his ass, but I knew the value of a hard-earned or stolen buck. It was two in the afternoon now and he hadn’t opened the place when I’d left? What was he thinking? I was surprised we didn’t have a few of our regulars going into DTs right there on the sidewalk.

Opening the door loudly, I made sure to close it more so behind me. There’s no point in being pissed off if there’s no way to share it. But before I had the chance, besides the door slamming, someone said, “You look like you were kicked out of a wet T-shirt contest.” There was a pause. “I didn’t know you could get kicked out of those.”

Zeke. Straightforward tell-me-the-truth-and-I’ll-tell-you-no-lies Zeke. Because lying was too much of a bother for him and if you lied to him, well, he’d probably just shoot you. He was sitting at one of the tables eating a pizza. Double cheese, pepperoni, sausage, mushroom, peppers, olives, and a cardiologist on call. Eating it in front of me. And there were bags . . . bags and bags in front of the table, full of garlic bread and cheese sticks from the smell of it. The exquisite smell that put the plumeria-soaked breezes of Hawaii to shame. That was worse than the wet T-shirt remark. I narrowed my eyes at him and dripped on the floor as he chewed and swallowed a bite. “You’re . . . puddle-y.” He looked at his Eden House partner across the table from him. “Is puddle-y a word?”

Griffin quirked his lips. “I think fewer moisture-related comments and more eating might be a good idea.”

Red eyebrows pulled into a scowl. “You are not the boss of me.” Slightly lighter red hair was pulled into a short ponytail . . . dry, not cascading buckets like mine. Zeke’s shirt was a plain gray long-sleeve T-shirt and his jeans were faded. What he wore didn’t make much difference to him. As long as he had a jacket to cover his gun, he was good to go. Fashion didn’t appear on his top-ten list of priorities.

“In fact, I am the boss of you,” Griffin said, reaching for his own piece of the pie, only with more napkins. “And you’re the boss of me tomorrow. Remember?”

“Oh, yeah.” Zeke gave a grin. He didn’t smile often, so he didn’t have much of a repertoire to choose from. Pissed and predatory. You-are-dead predatory. You-are-beyond-dead predatory. And this was the newest version that had cropped up since last November. Behind-the-bedroom-door predatory. It was also happy and since Zeke had spent most of his mortal life barely comprehending the word, I forgave the pizza. It was good to see him this way. More free and open than he’d ever been when he’d thought he was human. When he thought he and Griffin were human.

I know. Vegas, right? Is anyone human?

Griffin and Zeke had been demon-killing partners at Eden House Las Vegas. There was also an Eden House Miami, an Eden House Los Angeles, Eden House London . . . Eden Houses all over the world. They’d been around for thousands of years, a secret organization created by man to bring Eden back to Earth. The key word being man. Heaven had nothing to do with its creation, but once the angels saw a source of free labor, they took advantage now and again. And they certainly didn’t have a problem with Eden House trying to eradicate every demon it came across. It did a good job . . . on the slow, lower-level demons anyway.

The angels and the demons had both been after the Light for a long time. I’d just managed to get there first . . . by a few seconds. Having narrowed down the location, both sides had planted sleeper agents in Vegas’s Eden House. An angel, because even loyal humans couldn’t be trusted with the Light, and a demon in case Eden House got to the Light before Hell did. They’d been given the same human bodies demons and angels formed when walking on Earth, only they had been children. Eight and ten years old. For a demon, that’s a doable situation. Hang around with no memory of who you are, grow up, and then get activated by your Hell handler at the right moment. Because Eden House will recruit you as it tries to recruit all humans with empathy or telepathy. Nature was a marvelous thing. If angels had telepathy and demons had empathy, then so would the rest of what roamed the earth. Not everyone by any means, but it was out there . . . in humans and païen.

Hell had planned well. Griffin fit in fine. He was a demon. He had empathy, but more importantly he had free will. All demons did. All angels had. But after the Fall, God had taken the free will of the angels still in Heaven. Some had gotten it back. Relearned it. If they spent enough time on Earth with humans, they would slowly regain it. It was like riding a bicycle, only the lag time was usually much longer. Maybe God figured if they took it in baby steps, they’d get it right this time. No more pride goeth before the big trip down South. I wasn’t sure that was true. I’d met a few real asshole angels in my day. But that wasn’t my call.

Not all angels spent enough time on Earth to get their will back. Zeke had been one of those. When the angel in charge of seeking the Light had assigned an agent, he’d put Zeke . . . Zerachiel . . . in place. Zeke who’d had to learn free will about a hundred times faster than your average angel. Things hadn’t gone well. To this day he struggled. He saw things in black and white. Not only in justice, but in all aspects of his life. That tended to make his decisions permanent ones. Once he chose a course of action, he almost literally couldn’t stop and reconsider. I need to catch the demon in the Jaguar ahead of me. Red light? Demon trumps red light, and so a busload of German tourists was inconvenienced when his car smashed into them. It was just the way things were with Zeke. Sometimes people were inconvenienced; sometimes they were punished with good Old Testament eye for an eye.

And then sometimes they died.

I wrung the sweat out of my hair. “I guess you two are the reason my bar isn’t open and making money. Is the demon under the table your excuse?”

Griffin, ex-demon, and Zeke, ex-angel, defectors of Heaven and Hell, looked at each other. “I told you she would know,” Griffin snorted, and used the one hand not involved in eating pizza to pull a demon up into sight. Zeke helped by pushing the reptilian head up and back using the muzzle of a sawed-off shotgun.

“You’re no fun,” Zeke griped.

“It’s not like hiding him behind bags of cheesy bread is some kind of master plan, guys,” I pointed out, pushing aside those bags and pulling a chair over to the table to sit opposite the demon. And I had a piece of pizza. After today, I deserved it. And what was five more pounds? Just more force behind the ass kicking. I’d exercise, but if I couldn’t eat pizza, cheesy bread, or my own weight in chocolate-caramel ice cream once in a while, I might as well let a demon take me down. What’s the point in living without those things?

I looked over the demon as I chewed one fabulously cheese-laden mouthful. Swallowing, I said, “Tell me you didn’t pull his wing off and bring him here like a cat with a present for my pillow. Killing them is one thing. Torturing them is something else.” Even if they’d done more torture than we’d ever know. I swatted Zeke’s free hand that was making for the last piece of pizza. “Bad kitty.” I closed the lid on the box, saving it for myself.

“No,” Griffin said, sounding defensive. And that was my fault. I tried to be careful about saying things like that these days. Griffin had been a demon, even if he hadn’t known it until last November when the whole mess with the Light went down. He still didn’t remember it. When he’d chosen Zeke and Leo and me over doing Hell’s bidding, the Light had wiped his and Zeke’s slate clean. He had only his human memories and a human body now . . . with bronze dragon wings that came and went when he wanted them to . . . but even if he couldn’t remember, he knew. Every demon was a killer, a torturer, and a devourer of souls. And he’d been a high-level demon—not as high as Eli, but high enough that he would’ve outkilled your average demon, like the one he was holding, six ways to Sunday. Griffin had been one bad demon, very bad, which made it such a miracle he made one of the best humans I’d met.

“We found him this way,” he went on grimly. “We were out hunting.” They still hunted demons, although Eden House Vegas had been burned to the ground by Solomon and nearly all the members killed during the whole Light affair. What else would they do but hunt? That’s what they’d been trained for, it was worth doing, and after being a demon killer for most of what you remembered to be your adult life, you were going to give that up and work at the Gap? Besides, Eden House did pay well and since they were now without a House here, Griffin and Zeke were all the organization had left to take care of the city until they rebuilt.

Eden House obviously didn’t have a clue about Griffin’s and Zeke’s unusual status. Only one angel had known about Zeke being a sleeper agent and all the demons and angels at the battle for the Light had died . . . except Eli. As for Hell, they didn’t give a shit about ex-demons and ex-angels. You had to give them that. Betrayal wasn’t a bad word in their book. It was more like a compliment. It was pretty much every demon for himself . . . except when it looked like someone was out to take every single one of them down. Someone who seemed to have a good shot at it. Griffin and Zeke were good. I was good. But even the three of us couldn’t come close to doing what Eli said was being done.

“And you found him where?” I finished the slice of pizza and went for the hoarded last one, ignoring Zeke’s scowl of deprivation.

“Behind that new club five blocks over.” There was always a new club in Vegas. Usually no point in remembering the names, they came and went so frequently. And they never closed. Gambling and booze and vomiting tourists twenty-four/seven. And no state income tax. Who said there was no Eden anymore? “We’d already checked the inside. No demons. We went out back to see if there were any in the murdering instead of dealing mood and this one comes falling out of the sky. Literally. Almost landed right on top of Zeke. He crapped his pants.”

“I did not.” Zeke’s scowl deepened.

“Screamed like a drunk sorority girl in a haunted house?” Griffin’s short bad mood had passed quickly—they always did—and his blue eyes were bright with humor. That with his blond hair made him seem more like the ex-angel than Zeke with his red hair and green eyes.

“No. And you’re an ass.”

Griffin grinned at him. “Learned from the best.”

I looked past their fun at the demon. It was quiet, not struggling, not cursing us up one side and down the other. Demons came in different colors and levels, but well behaved wasn’t included in the options package. This one hung limp in Griffin’s and Zeke’s grip. It was conscious. I could see its muddy eyes rolling from right to left, but randomly. They weren’t focusing on my guys’ back-and-forth. They weren’t focusing on anything. Black drool dripped from its open mouth and the one remaining wing twitched, but not in a coordinated movement.

You had to hold on to demons to keep them from flashing back to Hell. And you couldn’t pop one in a crate with a doggy chew and a pat on its cute little head, and expect it to still be there when you came back. It wasn’t as much the physical that kept them from escaping; it was will. A cage didn’t have will. Your hand on a sword through its guts, that had will. Messy for your brand-new rug, but it did get the job done. This demon though . . .

I leaned closer across the table, touching my bottom lip in contemplation with a short painted nail. Those eyes . . . no, nobody home. “Either one of you getting anything off him? Because I think you could put a candle in his head and put him on the porch if it were Halloween.”

Both Griffin and Zeke frowned together. Empath and telepath, and both shook their heads. “White noise,” Griffin said.

“Veggie platter.” Zeke shrugged.

Something had ripped off the demon’s wing, but it had done something else I’d never seen. It had driven a demon catatonic. Now that would be a nifty trick. I’d love to know how that worked. More dark drool dripped from its narrow jaw. Maybe not. It was a murderous killing machine, but this . . . This was sick.

“Can you try a little harder, Kit?” I asked Zeke. He lifted the fox-colored eyebrows—that color had me calling him Kit for a baby fox since he was fifteen. Not that he was a baby anymore . . . but the nickname had stuck. “Dig a little deeper? See if you can get even a glimpse of what did this to it?”

“If you’ll puddle less, I’ll do anything,” he retorted.

“A pizza grudge is a nasty thing.” I swatted his shoulder. He snorted and turned back to stare at the demon again. He focused unblinking for several seconds.

I was beginning to think nothing was going to happen when the demon screamed. And screamed and screamed and screamed. I’d heard demons scream in pain. I’d made them scream in pain, but I’d never heard anything like this. Ever.

Zeke’s head jerked, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed to the floor, out cold. Griffin grunted as if someone had kicked him hard in the gut and went in the other direction, facedown on the table. But he wasn’t unconscious. His hands clenched into fists against his temples. I dived immediately for the shotgun that had fallen from Zeke’s hands. My Smith was a nice gun, but shotgun slugs were even more of a sure thing. I put two of them through the demon’s skull. I’d put away my fair share of demons, but this was the first time it was a mercy killing.

With most of his head gone, the demon melted to blackness as they all did, and the screaming stopped. In the room and in Griffin’s head as well, because he was back up. There was a trickle of blood at one nostril from where he’d banged his nose on the table. “What the hell was...,” he started hoarsely, then forgot about the demon as he moved to Zeke’s side. “Shit.”

I was right beside him as Griff rested his hand on Zeke’s forehead. It was my suggestion that had Zeke walking through the demon’s brain to read his thoughts and it had been a stupid one. I tried not to make stupid mistakes, but sending Zeke for a look at what had driven a demon insane was one of the worst I could remember making in a long time.

I didn’t have the talent for empathy or telepathy, only a natural defense against them. All tricksters did or we wouldn’t be very good at hiding who we were from those who did have the gift, not to mention angels and demons. I could read someone’s expression and body language though as if I had a map in one hand and a GPS in the other. But I couldn’t do much with an unconscious face. “Is he all right?” He had to be all right. He and Griffin were my boys. I’d taken them in when they were teenagers. I’d thought I was keeping an eye on my competition. And it was just for a while. Everyone who takes in a ragged, dirty-nosed puppy tells themselves that, but those puppies worm their way into your heart even when they piddle in the corner. There’s nothing you can do to stop it.

Griffin frowned. “He’s not in pain.” You don’t have to be conscious to feel pain. Sad to say all three of us knew that.

Zeke wasn’t in pain, which was good, but was he there? Was it still Zeke in there or was he like the demon had been? Alive but gone?

Griffin closed his eyes, concentrating hard, before exhaling in relief. He opened his eyes and smiled. “He’s hungry. He feels hungry.”

Good. That was good. Hunger and catatonia rarely went together. I shifted from my knees to an abrupt flop onto my ass. “Our Zeke. He’s always hungry.” I pushed aside hair that had plastered and glued itself to my forehead with sweat. “Do you want to punch me one for asking Zeke to do that?”

“You’re a girl,” he said immediately, then amended as I raised my eyebrows. “I mean, a woman.”

“I am and one who can kick your butt, but you didn’t answer my question.” I leaned against his shoulder and ruffled his hair.

“A little bit,” he admitted. “Must be the leftover demon in me.”

“No. Just the overprotective demon-slaying partner in you.” I smoothed the hair I’d mussed. “And next time I’ll clear anything I ask Zeke to do through you first. You know him best.”

“I do.” After the rebuke that was milder than I deserved, he reached over and slapped Zeke lightly on the cheek. “Definitely enough to know when he’s faking. He woke up a few seconds ago. Up or no cheesy bread for you.”

Eyes opened combined with an irritable expression. “I was waiting to see if one of you cried. On TV they always cry at the deathbed.”

Equally irritated, Griffin flicked his partner’s chin with a stinging finger before helping him sit up. “You weren’t on your deathbed, and what if I had cried? What would you have said?”

Zeke snorted. “That you were a pussy.”

“That’s what I thought.” He stood and pulled Zeke up with him.

I stood too. “Are you feeling okay, Kit? You went down like a rock.”

“I did?” he asked without too much curiosity, more interested in investigating the bags of bread. He unloaded one batch on the table and looked down at the black puddle on the floor. “Hey, the demon. What happened to the demon?” He turned back to me. “And when did you get here?” He looked me up and down. “You look like you were kicked out of a wet T-shirt contest. I didn’t know you could—”

I cut him off before he repeated the whole insult. I let it go the first time. Twice was asking a bit much. “You don’t remember me coming in?” I felt the back of his head for a bump or contusion.

He swatted at my hand. “You’re being a mom. Quit it.”

“I’m thirty-one,” I retorted ominously. “I am not a mom. I’m definitely not your mom.”

“You’re six thousand and the last thing I remember is eating pizza and waiting for you to get here to see the demon.” He forgot about the bread for the moment and searched the tabletop and then under it. “Where’s the pizza?”

“I’m thirty-one,” I said this time around, “the pizza is gone, the demon is dead, and you were trying to take a peek in his brain to see why he had all the mental capacity of a potted plant when you keeled over like a drunken Baptist minister.”

“Huh,” he commented before moving on to more important things. “Griffin, your nose is busted. If the demon did that, it’s a good thing he’s dead. So who ate the pizza?”

One thing about Zeke, he never let the little things in life get to him, and other than Griffin and food, they were all little things. At times it was annoying as hell, and at other times it was almost inspirational. To live in the now . . . no worries about the future or monsters that could turn demons’ brains to oatmeal.

Right now it was vexing enough I nearly smacked him with the piece of garlic bread he was considering eating. Sighing, I tried Griffin instead. “You took a hit too when the demon went nuts. I saw it.” I handed him a napkin from the table. “And your face felt it.” He grimaced and held the napkin to the small drop of blood from his nose. “What did you pick up from it?”

“Terror.” He wiped the blood away. “More than I’ve ever felt from anyone, even from people torn apart by demons before we could stop them. More terror than I thought a demon could feel. More than I thought even existed.”

More terror than could possibly exist, and something so horrifying that Zeke’s brain had shut down to prevent him from seeing it.

Well, wasn’t that just peachy?