The Grimrose Path

Chapter 2

I’d given the guys the update on demons dying right and left, a powerful creature running about—mission unknown and headed up to my apartment. By the time I took my shower, changed, and came back downstairs, the place was empty. No Griffin, no Zeke, no cheesy bread. There still was a large black puddle of demon goo on my floor though. Although I’d shot it, the guys had brought it, so technically it was their mess. But . . . I sighed as I went for the mop. Zeke had been knocked flat, had been unconscious, and Griffin was concerned about him. He’d seemed himself—and it was very easy to see when Zeke was not himself—but better safe than sorry.

Griffin probably had him at their house, feet up, TV on, and watching like a hawk for anything unexpected such as twitches, seizures, or the desire to not swap old porn magazines to the Jehovah’s Witnesses for the Watchtower. After all, Griffin was making him get rid of them and in Zeke’s mind this was a valid recycling program. Zeke might be an ex-angel, but he’d never had any sexual hang-ups, which rather made you wonder why people did.

Either way, they were gone. Leo wasn’t back from wherever he’d disappeared to. I knew Leo. What was between us was something only the two of us could understand, but that didn’t mean I could begin to guess where he went when he wandered off. I’d been born to hit the ground running, whelped to wander as all tricksters were, but Leo could make me look like a very mossy, very nonrolling stone. And when he was dating one of his bimbos . . . and they were all bimbos . . . I’d have to take him to the vet and get him chipped if I wanted a clue as to where he was roaming.

After mopping the floor, I flipped the sign to OPEN and settled down to business. I had three kinds of business in my life: serving alcohol, selling information, and tricking those who deserved it. Killing demons wasn’t business. It was Griffin and Zeke’s business, but for me . . . it was just my favorite hobby. My way of giving back to the community, by keeping a few more members of that community alive and undamned.

My first client didn’t come for the first kind of business, but I gave her one anyway. I looked her up and down and gave her a whiskey on the rocks. She was more of a wine cooler girl. Fruity drinks, light beer, not a serious drinker, but she needed a real drink now.

She sat down at the table across from me after introducing herself and touched a finger to the glass. She gave me her name, a nervous half smile, and said, “Normally I don’t . . . I mean, I’m more of a sangria, Fuzzy Navel person. Silly girl drinks, you know.” Her smile faded. “For a silly girl.”

But she wasn’t a girl. She was a woman, just barely . . . twenty-two, twenty-three. Almost a girl, but unlike horseshoes and hand grenades, “almost” didn’t count in this case. She took a swallow of the whiskey, made a face, but took a second swallow. “Better?” I asked sympathetically.

She nodded and pushed the glass aside. “Thank you.” She opened the purse in her lap—more of a bag really. It was big enough to carry around a sketch pad, pencils, a computer, any number of things. She had that artsy look. Homemade jewelry of silver wire with lots of polished stones and silver rings to match. Probably a vegan. She looked sweet and earnest and generally concerned for every living being. Probably had a bumper sticker for every endangered species on the planet. She certainly wasn’t my usual clientele. She wasn’t the kind looking for trouble or the kind looking to get herself out of trouble . . . unless she was caught breaking animals out of a testing lab. If that were the case, I’d give her my help for free. Turn the bunnies loose and stick a few death row inmates in those cages. Cute and fluffy versus killers with misspelled tattoos. It seemed like a fair trade to me.

It turned out I was wrong though. She was looking to get herself out of trouble—the very worst kind of trouble.

She took some photos out of the bag and was turning them over in her hands. “Somebody told me about you. What you do. That you know things that people shouldn’t be able to know. And that you believe in”—she flushed—“things people say don’t exist. That maybe you’re psychic.”

Now this was interesting. “No, sweetie, I’m not a psychic and don’t pay any money to anyone who says they are.” She flushed an even brighter red, revealing she already had. She was helpless and clueless, as out of place as a guppy in a shark tank. Poor little fish.

“That’s a pretty necklace,” she said, shuffling the photos faster.

I touched it. It was a pretty necklace, one Leo had given me . . . a gold sun with a red garnet. Red for me, and the sun to banish the cloudy days of my past, the days of finding revenge for my brother, for Kimano. And that was all beside the point. She was postponing the difficult, the painful. We all do.

I dropped my hand. “Show me the pictures, Anna. It’s like taking off a Band-Aid. The quicker the better. Let’s fix you up, guppy. Let you sleep again.”

“Guppy?” She rubbed self-consciously at the dark smudges under her eyes and curled her lips in a sad smile. “Little fish in a big scary ocean. Are you sure you’re not psychic?” Not waiting for an answer, she laid out the first photo as if it were a card in a tarot deck . . . as if she were laying out her life. Past, present, and future.

She was.

The first photograph rested on the table and I turned it with my finger to make it right side up for me. It was a girl, about ten. She wasn’t beautiful. She wasn’t necessarily pretty either. But she had a sweet smile, freckles scattered over her nose and her dark brown hair drifting in a long-gone breeze. She clutched a kitten next to her cheek. It didn’t look happy, nose scrunched, tail poofed, but it put up with the hug. It was your typical little-kid picture. Cute, but nothing out of the ordinary. “What was the cat’s name?”

She blinked and smiled again. “Pickles. Actually Sir Pickles the Perilous. We both had delusions of grandeur.”

Then she laid out the next one and the smile vanished so thoroughly I couldn’t imagine she knew how to smile, much less just had been. This one was of a girl in a hospital bed. Half of her face was more or less gone, burned away. The eye was gone too, the hair a memory. They’d tried skin grafts and they covered the skull and muscle, but I don’t think anyone counted the operations a success.

She kept dealing out the photos. Eleven years old, twelve . . . “That’s when they gave me my first wig” . . . thirteen, fourteen . . . “This is when I had my second prosthetic eye. The first never fit right.” . . . fifteen, sixteen, seventeen . . . “This is me with my friends.” They were pictures of her alone. On the couch watching TV. In her room on her bed reading a book. In a backyard with Sir Pickles the Perilous in her lap. Alone again. Always alone. “This is me prom night.” It was another picture of her in a hospital bed. This time her wrists were bandaged. “And this is me”—the last picture—“on my twenty-first birthday.”

She looked as she did now. Smooth skin, freckles, dark brown hair to her shoulders, clear brown eyes. There wasn’t a single scar, much less the massive disfigurement of before, and in this picture she was smiling as she hadn’t since she was ten. She was happy, so happy that she could’ve powered all the neon in Vegas with the sheer joy in her face.

“Oh, sweetie.” I gathered up the pictures and turned them facedown. “I’m sorry. I am, but there’s no help for you.” I wished there were a way to soften it, but in this case there wasn’t. There was only truth, ugly and inescapable.

This time when she blinked it was to clear the tears clinging to her eyelashes. Then she used the back of her hand to wipe them away. “He was our neighbor’s gardener. He was new. He’d only been there for a few days, but he talked to me . . . over the fence. No one ever talked to me much except my parents. He just . . . talked. He didn’t try to make me fall in love with him or anything like that. He didn’t have to. He only had to be my friend. For a week I had a friend. And he was funny. I laughed for the first time since the accident. I spent the whole week laughing and actually not minding living, and then at the end of the week he asked me a question.” She took the pictures back and tucked them carefully away. “I didn’t believe in God. I didn’t believe in the devil. I definitely didn’t believe in demons.”

“But they believed in you.”

She nodded and ran fingers along her jaw. It was probably a habit—making sure it was real. “I didn’t ask to be beautiful. I didn’t ask to be famous or powerful or rich. I just asked to be who I would’ve been if the car accident hadn’t happened. I’m not pretty. I’m average and that’s fine. I never take average for granted now. I work at Starbucks to put myself through art school. I have a tiny apartment I can barely afford. There’s a guy who lives down the hall who smiles at me at the mailboxes. I think he might ask me out. I didn’t ask for anything extra. I only asked for...” She stopped and tucked her hair behind her ears. “I only asked for my life back. And I got it and it was wonderful, but now it’s three years later and I know. Trading eternity for twenty years, I made a mistake.”

Yes, she had—a big one. And she wouldn’t get eternity. I didn’t know why they bothered with that lie. I guess it sounded better than And sooner rather than later, I’ll eat your soul. Eternity gave them hope. God will forgive. God will set us free. With nonexistence, there was no hope.

“I only asked,” she repeated, eyes dry now. “I only asked.”

“No,” I exhaled. “You didn’t. He asked. The demon asked for your soul and you gave it to him. And there’s no way out of it.” A helpless guppy all right. On the very day she was able to give her soul away, someone was already waiting to take it. A good girl, a nice girl, and there wasn’t anything I could do for her. Free will was free will. She didn’t deserve Hell, but Hell she would get. I didn’t know her demon, but even if I had and killed him, then another would step up and then another. “No soul left behind” . . . All bureaucracies had their mottoes.

Someone would always come for Anna, one way or the other.

You couldn’t save them all, and I wasn’t in the saving business per se, but if I could’ve saved anyone I’d seen sell their souls over the years, it would’ve been her. But I couldn’t, so I sent her away, her and her pictures with Sir Pickles. She went quietly. She stopped after a few steps, turned to thank me politely for my time, and then walked out the bar door into Hell.

Whether you waited twenty years or twenty seconds, it was all the same eventually.

Hell was Hell.

Leo finally showed his face the next morning. I was already up. I’d opened the bar early to make up for yesterday’s lack of profit. And I’d called and texted everyone and anyone I knew in the païen world to see if anyone had heard about the demon slaughter. So far I’d gotten nothing but a bemused feeling at the thought of a seven-tailed trickster fox trotting around Japan with a BlackBerry in its jaws.

Leo, on the other hand, looked like he’d gotten something. He could wear that stoic expression all he wanted, but I knew him. “Not a new one,” I groaned.

“I’m a man with needs.” He shrugged as he put on one of the bar’s black aprons, wrapping the tie twice around his waist.

“Which are oddly enough always met with silicone,” I retorted.

He shrugged again, but this time quirked his lips, “It’s Vegas. You get a free boob job every time you fill up your car. How is that my fault?”

Big breasts, small brains, and underwear tiny enough to have been knitted by Tinkerbell—he did it every time. I could’ve blamed it on him being worshipped as a Norse god, lots of buxom blondes frolicking in the snow, but I wasn’t sure that was it. I thought there was more to it than that. He did it for the same reason I slept with a black raven’s feather under my pillow. If we couldn’t have what we actually wanted, we went without or went for the exact opposite. I wasn’t exactly proud of some of my past dates.

“Spots.” I sighed. Leo and I had ties . . . unbreakable ones . . . two leopards with the same spots. Too much the same in the past, too much the same for now, but maybe . . . maybe not always. I had the feather to remind me of that.

“Spots,” the one who’d given me that feather agreed, the curve of his lips softer; then he continued with a wicked glint to his black eyes, “Her spots are called pasties, I believe. She’s a dancer.”

“Stripper.” I threw a towel at him.

“Who has goals in the theater.” He caught it and polished the bar with broad strokes.

“She wants to be a porn star.” I looked for something else to throw, but there was nothing that wouldn’t come out of this month’s profit.

“And she does charity work.” He tossed the towel across his shoulder and folded his arms.

“She does you for free?” I smiled with caustic cheer.

He frowned. “I do not pay for sex, little girl.”

“You only get to call me that for four more years.” And five foot five was not that short. Maybe in comparison to the six-foot-plus American Indian body he’d chosen, I was somewhat smaller, but I was not little, most especially not when it came to temper, where it counted most. “So did you offer her free drinks here for the duration of your sexcapades or fix her refrigerator?”

That got the towel thrown back at me. “No, thanks.” I folded it and put it aside. “I don’t have to stuff my bra. Unlike some, I don’t feel the need to be a double D or wax myself as bare as a honeydew melon. Barbie dolls are for little girls to play with, not grown, perverted men. Now, about our demon trouble.”

That distracted him. “What demon trouble?”

I told him. He grasped the implications as quickly as I had. “There aren’t many out there who could do that,” he said thoughtfully, before adding, “one less now that I’m grounded.”

“Godzilla to the hundredth power is running around and you have to get your ego in the picture,” I said fondly. “Just remember, your biggest and baddest power now is dropping bird shit on people’s cars.” He kept reminding me how vulnerable I was now. I didn’t want him to forget he was as well.

He ignored the insult—to his manhood and bird-hood. “And Eligos is back.” He turned and served a beer to one of our regulars—a walking handlebar mustache roosting on a skinny guy it was using for life support. The man was a person; he had a name. I knew it . . . first, middle, last, and nickname. I knew where he’d been born. I knew where he lived, who he lived with, how much money he made in Social Security checks. I made it my business to know these things about all my regulars, but one look at him and the mustache never failed to jump into the foreground—an entity all its own. It was like seeing someone with a giant if not friendly spider on his face. . . . It was difficult to ignore.

“We knew he wasn’t leaving Vegas,” I said as the mustache shuffled off to its customary table in the corner. “I’m surprised he didn’t single-handedly found the place. This city is tailor-made for him.”

“And I imagine he thinks the same about you. You caught his interest, and right now, being mortal, that is not a good thing,” he said disapprovingly, as if somehow it was my fault that I might be more entertaining to kill than whatever it was that Eli usually came across.

“Don’t think it’s all about me. You’re as intriguing or at least he will think you still are.” I pinched his cheek. “He might even think you’re more ‘purty’ than I am, you never know. A hot babe like you who has to part lusting strippers like the Red Sea just to walk among the common people. He might want to take you out instead of killing you. Of course he’s not a blonde with breasts the same size and shape as the Hindenburg, but he won’t drop a pastie in your soup at dinner either.”

“I think I’ll bring Morocco by the bar,” he contemplated. “Let you meet her. I think you two will bond.”

“Playing hardball. Cranky, cranky. I would think you’d be in a better mood having your manly needs fulfilled and all.” I took my apron off and stuffed it under the bar. “Morocco. That’s beautiful,” I said solemnly. “Is that where her people are from? Lots of blue-eyed blondes there.”

“I think she saw it on the Travel Channel,” he replied with equal gravity, “and thought it sounded exotic.”

I thought about spearing his hand with a tiny paper drink umbrella, then gave it up as a lost cause and advised, “Hide all your singles when she’s around. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“And you’re going where while I toil at your bar?” he demanded.

“Out to play hooky with demons. You ditched yesterday, so I get to ditch today. Remember, this place keeps a roof over your head. Unless you want to take up stripping yourself.” I gave him a wave and went out through the back office to the alley entrance. That was one thing Leo didn’t have that a born trickster did. We were very aware of money . . . how much we had, how much someone else had, and how we planned on conning them out of it. We were magpies, and money—even in the day when money was shells, salt, or measures of grain—money was the bright shiny thing we loved. Some of us loved it more than others. There were tricksters who had an enormous amount of wealth socked away and some, like me, who kept enough just to be comfortably off when human. Leo didn’t have that same need, that drive. When he needed money, he would get it. But when you were born a trickster, you always needed it, whether you spent it or not.

I did like to spend mine.

In the alley, I opened the door to my car. It still had that wonderful new-car smell and like my last one, destroyed in November, it was red—my color and it had been since my very first trick.

It had started with an apple.

No, not that apple.

Just an ordinary ripe red apple and a greedy farmer who wouldn’t share with a cute little girl with tangled black hair and dirty feet. He probably blamed it on not praying enough to the local fertility goddess when he woke up the next morning to find every branch of every tree bare of even a single piece of fruit, but it was just a baby trickster teaching her very first lesson. Don’t be greedy, and don’t take anything for granted, because something could take it all away from you.

More than nine hundred demons had apparently learned that lesson in the past six months, taking their lives for granted, or so Eli said. And I trusted Eli’s word. Oh, I so did not. Not even in the womb would I have been that naïve. If all those demons had been killed, more than Eli would know about it—other demons would as well. I only had to track one down and ask him . . . or her. Unlike angels, demons would wear a male or female body—whatever it took to get the job done. Angels, on the other hand . . . I shook my head and backed out of the alley into traffic on Boulder Highway, ignored the enraged honking, and sped off. I wasn’t going to ruin my good mood thinking about those chauvinistic pigeons.

I met Griffin and Zeke at Caesars Palace. Zeke had been banned from the Venetian for trying to drown in one of the canals a demon disguised as a singing, then gurgling, gondolier. He’d also been blacklisted at the Luxor for excessive buffet use in one sitting. Zeke was not precisely a Renaissance man. When it came to killing demons and loyalty, he was at the top of his game. When it came to everything else—that’s why insurance existed. He either didn’t get it and didn’t want to get it. Or he wanted to get it and you’d better get your ass out of his way.

Twenty minutes later I was walking past centurions with much better teeth than the genuine ones had had, breathed in air touched with smoke, adrenaline, and despair, and tracked down Griffin and Zeke in one of the bars on the floor of the casino. They were in a small booth in a gloom-filled corner. That was Vegas—all blinding sun outside but always twilight inside—no matter what time of the day. Illusions were kept whole by those shadows and Vegas itself was one big illusion. Inside that illusion, Zeke was nursing a beer and his partner an untouched whiskey from the smell of it when I sat beside him. The alcohol was camouflage or at least it was supposed to be. “Someone having a bad day?” I nodded at the half-empty beer.

“We came by the pool and Zeke had to walk past the buffet.” Griffin gave his partner a shoulder bump. “Like Romeo and Juliet. Star-crossed lovers destined to forever be apart.” Zeke didn’t respond beyond sliding down a few inches and having another swallow of beer.

“Don’t worry, Romeo.” I patted his hand resting on the table. “The Luxor can’t have e-mailed your picture to every buffet in town and new ones are opening almost every day.”

“I hate people,” he grumbled. “‘All you can eat’ means all you can eat. Lying bastards.”

I patted him again. “I know. They’re very bad and I’ll punish them for you, I promise.” After all, it wasn’t that different from the farmer and his apple, and my punishment wouldn’t involve gunfire. I couldn’t say the same about Zeke in action. “But let’s concentrate on finding a demon to chat with right now.”

“Chat.” He perked up and moved his hand inside his jacket to rest on one of the guns he always carried in a shoulder holster. His Colt Anaconda wasn’t one of those. I wasn’t sure they made shoulder holsters big enough for a weapon of that size. “Chatting is good.”

“Not that kind of chatting,” Griffin corrected. “We don’t kill demons....”

“In front of people. We don’t kill demons in front of cameras—video or digital,” Zeke recited with a bored expression, before adding, “And we don’t kill demons in front of puppies.” He let go of his gun and used his hand to tilt the beer bottle at me. “I made up that rule myself. Apparently puppies are easily mentally scarred. Griffin brings them up in my tutoring often enough, so it’s gotta be true.”

Griffin had “tutored” Zeke in his decision-making skills for so long and with every scenario he could possibly bring to mind—be it saving kids versus killing demons to saving a politician versus killing demons, which was a tough one regardless of how slippery your grip on free will—that I wasn’t surprised to see Zeke giving him a hard time about it. I enjoyed it, in fact. Zeke had come a long way on a very treacherous path. He deserved to dish out a little mockery.

“So I hear,” I agreed solemnly. “Now, spread out and let’s reel in a fish.”

Griffin had his empathy to feel a demon’s emotions; Zeke had his telepathy to hear their thoughts. I didn’t envy either of them those abilities. The things that demons thought, the things they felt—none of it could be pleasant. As for me, I had the eyes my mama gave me, which was all I needed. I made my way through tourists who had money pouring through their fingers like sand, I studied blackjack dealers who might promise to turn Lady Luck around if given the proper incentive, but it turned out Zeke was the first to snare one. It trailed behind him like one of those puppies Griffin was so concerned about in his lesson plans. That it was Zeke that the demon had honed in on told me something immediately. This wasn’t one of the lower-level demons. They liked the easy marks. Get in, get the IOU on the soul, and get out. They didn’t like the difficult prey when Vegas was so full of ones they could hook in two seconds. This demon obviously liked a challenge, because no one put off “I don’t care” and “Get the hell away from me” like Zeke did. And while Griffin had taught him the basics of hiding his emotions just as Zeke had taught his partner the same about concealing thoughts, Zeke rarely could manage to completely hide his hostility toward demons.

This one was definitely bored and thought Zeke was his Mount Everest. That made him higher level, but hopefully not as high as Eli was. We were in a public place and there was only so much we could do there. But that also meant there was only so much he could do as well. Griffin and I made our way out of the wandering gamblers and walked back into the bar as we saw Zeke make his move. By the time we joined him, he was staring at the demon sitting beside him in the booth with the same expression he would’ve used for regarding dog shit on the bottom of his shoe. It didn’t bother the demon, obviously, as he continued to talk smoothly.

“Okay, I got one first,” Zeke said as I, and then Griffin, sat to one side of the demon, boxing him between us and fellow demon bait. “What do I win?”

The demon, a man with prematurely bright silver hair, ferociously intelligent eyes, a killer tan, and an absolutely amazing accent that made you think you were back on Fantasy Island, let his salesman smile flicker. He knew something was up. He was a smart one all right and that made him only more dangerous. “What is happening? I was but speaking with my new friend. Zeke, you said your name was, yes, my friend? I am Armand.”

Zeke went back to his beer bottle with his left hand.... His right was ready and waiting for a go at his gun. “We always want the ones who don’t want us. Don’t take it personally,” I told the demon, resting a faux friendly hand on his shoulder . . . holding him here. No quick trip back to Hell for him.

“Eden House,” he said flatly, the accent disappearing and the charisma going with it. The eyes went from fierce to carnivorous. He knew his potential deal had gone bad from that very moment. I was surprised that Eli let another demon almost as quick-witted as he operate in what he now considered his city. “You’re supposed to all be dead.”

“You shouldn’t listen to gossip. Look what happened to Eve,” I tsked. Eli hadn’t told the other demons about my trickster status . . . as he knew it anyway. That was pure demon and pure Eli. When it was nine hundred of his colleagues dead, he was concerned, but if I took out ten or twenty, that only cleared out the playing field for him a little—lessened the competition.

And if this particular competitor wanted to think I was Eden House, I didn’t mind being their mascot for this conversation. “But speaking of gossip, your co-worker Eligos mentioned that someone was taking you out, knoshing on you by the hundreds like marshmallow Peeps. Those are good, aren’t they?” I mused. “Pink or yellow, I’ve never had a preference,” I said with nostalgia for last year’s Easter, giving a quick thank-you to the German fertility goddess, Ēostre, and her candy-loving hares. Credit where credit is due. Then I forgot about sticky sweetness and got down to business. “So, sugar, have you heard anything about that?”

“Eligos talked to you?” he said with disbelief. “An Eden House lackey, spitting feathers with every word. I sincerely doubt that.”

“The last standing of our House and we talk to Eligos and walk away,” Griffin said coldly. In anyone’s eyes, Above or Below, that made us pretty damn tough. “We are not to be fucked with.” That too.

“Something to think about, Peep,” I said, my hand dropping to his leg and still anchoring him as I used my other hand to pull my Smith that I’d shoved down behind the leather cushion we were sitting on before we’d gone hunting. It was a good place to raise it, hidden in the shadows moving up behind his shoulder to bury its muzzle against the base of his spine. “And exactly what is he thinking, Zeke?” Demons didn’t have to talk for us to hear. We only had to get close to one and bring up the subject.

Eli might want to have a conversation that was in our mutual . . . possibly . . . best interests, but no matter how bright another demon was, it wouldn’t be Eligos. Intelligence had nothing to do with sharing information with a bitter enemy who might, in one wildly improbable circumstance, be able to help you. Intelligence could let you see that picture, but only guts or an enormous ego would let you draw it. All demons had ego, but not all of them had the spine to match. Our friend here could, but it didn’t matter if he did or not. I wasn’t relying on chance, not when I could rely on Zeke instead.

Zeke’s focus on the demon went unblinking. Armand—what a name for a demon to appropriate—didn’t care for that. He hissed and bared still-human teeth. We were in public and that mattered to him as much as it did to us. The last thing Hell wanted was for people to not only truly believe in it, but to believe that it wasn’t waiting patiently, that it was actively knocking at your door to do everything it could to drag you down. Heaven wasn’t the only one with recruiters. And if you were too pious and pure, then tearing you apart was a very viable second option. No, Hell didn’t want that getting around any more than the late Colonel Sanders wanted his recipe for extra crispy hitting the Internet.

I put more pressure on the gun, feeling it grate against the bony processes of the demon’s spine. “Keep it together, doll, and it’ll be over soon enough. Then you can get back to filling up your lunch box. But in the future I’d ignore those who ignore you. They probably have a bigger bite than you do.” I kept my gaze flickering from Armand to Zeke as I went on to say, “Getting anything, Kit?”

Zeke’s mouth twisted. “I got it. Now let me kill him. I don’t give a shit if it’s in front of the whole damn casino. He needs to die. For what he’s done . . . he has to die and it has to fucking hurt.”

It was difficult to say what would’ve happened next if Armand hadn’t made his move. Eden House had connections in every branch of the government, local and federal, but they preferred to use their power as subtly as possible. If an operative could make his way out of his own mess, that would be ideal. If not, Eden House would step in and pull some strings. But shooting a demon in front of hundreds of people and trying to pass it off as one of those magic tricks Vegas was so famous for when that perceived “victim” turned into a puddle, there wasn’t much Eden House could or would do for you. Because in this situation you weren’t ridding the world of an unholy predator, you were breaking the rules. And Eden House, much like those Upstairs, didn’t care for having their rules broken.

If they had any idea what Griffin had been and what Zeke had abandoned, they would’ve done their level best to kill them both.

That was why I was reasonably satisfied with the way things turned out. I wasn’t happy the demon escaped a no doubt well-deserved death, but to keep Zeke out of jail for whatever length of time it took to prove that no body equaled no prosecutable crime was worth it. The hissing turned to snarling and the demon slithered from between Zeke and me, went on to flip over the table in one continuous movement of sinuous speed, and was gone onto the casino floor and out into the crowd in a matter of seconds. The movement caught the bartender’s attention in midswipe at the inside of a glass. Then he shrugged. Cirque du Soleil was always in town. It was a commentary on the city that demons were so easily explained away. Or perhaps it was a commentary on the peculiarities of Cirque du Soleil performers. I wasn’t one to rush to judgment.

Flexibility though, that was something to think about. Maybe like Leo I should do some dating of my own. Catch a show and dinner. Killing demons was entertaining, but a girl had to eat.

I hid my gun out of sight, returned to its holster in the small of my back. “Kit?”

Zeke shook his head and finished his beer in several swallows before echoing the bartender’s shrug. “Same as that son of a bitch Eligos told you about. Nine hundred some of the murdering bastards dead. Like any of us are crying over that.”

Griffin shifted almost imperceptibly beside me. Zeke frowned at him. “Don’t do that. Don’t think that. It’s not true, okay? It’s not fucking true.”

“It is true. I don’t remember it, but it’s true.” Griffin pushed away the whiskey because at that moment it had to be too much of a temptation for him.

Zeke kicked me under the table. He’d known Griffin all his human life, but Zeke had never been good with words, not the non-four-letter kind, and now he was wanting me to fix this. Although I’d give it my best, in the end it was only Griffin who could fix himself, but I gave it a shot. “You were born seventeen years ago,” I told him sternly, swiveling to plant a finger in his chest. “You’re a twenty-seven-year-old human being”—with wings, but no need to go into that—“who has never done anything in his entire life that wasn’t for the greater good, and, even better, for the little good.” When it came to the greater good, there were often civilian casualties. That’s why greater was slapped on the description, so that when you cried over a dead neighbor, friend, or family member, you could remember it was for the greater good. Their sacrifice . . . your sacrifice . . . wasn’t in vain. That’s why I cherished the little good. With that, no one worthy of life died. No one was hurt. There was a happy ending and only evil fell.

With a bemused expression, Griffin looked down at my finger denting his chest. “But before that . . .”

“No, no, Griff. There was no before that. Whoever that demon was before, it doesn’t matter. He died when you were born, and when you chose us over Hell, you put a headstone and wreath on his grave. You’re Griffin, no one else, and if Zeke won’t smack you for thinking differently, then I will. Clear?” I asked with one last poke of my finger to his expensive shirt. “Or should I go on?”

“Unless you plan on sticking your entire hand in my chest and pulling out my heart to show me how big and wholesome it is,” he said, “I think I have it.”

“Big, wholesome, and bright and shiny as a parade of Valentine’s hearts. I promise you that. Want a peek at my emotions to know if I’m telling the truth?” I offered. I could drop the shield that protected me against psychic incursions. I rarely did, but for my guys, I made exceptions. And when it came to situations like this, I didn’t think twice.

“No. The offer is enough. That you believe is enough.” He pretended to smooth his shirt. Zeke growled. “And you too,” Griffin added. “I think that would go without saying though.”

“Like you listen to me.” Zeke slid out of the booth. “Did you believe me when I said the house on the corner was a meth lab? No.”

“I did too believe you. I just thought you should let them blow themselves up, not do the job for them.” Griffin exited the other side. “It would’ve happened sooner or later. They didn’t have kids . . . or puppies. There was no hurry.”

“It smelled. It made my eyes water.” Zeke waited for Griffin to pay the bill. He was of the opinion that he provided a public service like a policeman and like a policeman, he deserved food and drink for free. That he didn’t have a badge to prove it was the only flaw in his plan.

Griffin passed over some bills, waved off the change, and walked out with us. “I guess I should be grateful you waited until they were out before you blew up their house.”

Zeke didn’t appear the least bit sheepish. “Coincidence is a . . .” He let the words trail off, at a loss.

I tried to help. “Wonderful thing? Convenient thing? Fated thing?”

He shifted his shoulders. “Eh, it’s a thing.” And that was good enough for him. By this time we’d hit the casino floor and were headed for an exit. Griffin was about to swat him hard on the back of his head. I saw his hand rising, when a centurion moved in front of us, blocking us from the nearest exit.

The costumed throwback to Colosseum days said with a dazzling smile, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. Render unto God that which is God’s—your middle finger will do nicely. And render unto me any and all sexual favors. A good deal of Rome did and who can blame them.” He spread his shield and sword to show off what the fake armor covered. “Not their souls, of course. Most of them belonged to Hades or Pluto or whoever you had running the Roman underworld then, slim pickings in those days, but everything else . . . a never-ending feast of orgies and death. And damn it was good! Can I get a hallelujah?” He frowned at us. “No? Not even one?” Then he shrugged and that smile was back again. “But now there’s Vegas, which is almost as good as Rome, plus there’s air-conditioning and deodorant, because, seriously, it did get a bit rank at times back then.”

“Eli, how did your pet tattle so fast? No telepathy among you lizards.” I folded my arms. I had nothing to fear from him here. This was far more public than the bar had been.

“My cell. I gave you my card, but you never call anymore.” He sang lightly, “You don’t bring me flowers, you don’t sing me love songs. . . .” Once he stopped the singing, his face darkened. “Do not bother Amdusias.” That would have to be Armand. “He is a duke, like me. If he were to kill you before I have my chance, I would be very disappointed.”

“You are a duke, aren’t you?” My smile was as bright as his had been earlier. “A mere duke with a measly sixty legions of demons to your name. Aw, I feel for you, sugar. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Always a duke, never emperor. Never Lucifer himself.” I’d studied so much demonology in my day, I would’ve owned Aleister Crowley’s ass in Satanic Trivial Pursuit and had time left over to kick it in Unholy Pictionary too.

Eli stepped closer, dropping the sword beside his well-muscled leg. I noticed it was a real sword, unlike the fakes provided to Caesars’s usual centurions, and even sharper than the ones once used by gladiators. Most certainly not OSHA approved. “A duke in Hell, but a king everywhere else, sweetheart. And do not ever forget it.” He leaned in and nuzzled my hair. “Amdusias is a duke as well, one who used to have thirty legions of his own. We both have fewer now, thanks to one of yours. And he does my scut work for the privilege of being in my mere presence. Eager to learn. And good lackeys are hard to find.” He inhaled, then exhaled, the air rustling past my neck with an unnatural heat. “Oranges and honey. It’s not only on you, but part of you. I could lay you down in an orange grove, Trixa, and cover you with that honey.”

“Then you could eat me, and not in a way women usually care for.” I gave him a push hard enough to move him back a few inches.

He grinned, unrepentant. “We all have our particular preferences, but we could have sex first and then I could eat you. I aim to please.”

“You aim anywhere and everywhere and leave a trail of blood wherever you go,” I replied. Zeke was growling at my shoulder, but he knew better than to interfere. I knew demons and I knew how their brains worked . . . murderous mazes reflected in manic mirrors. They were twisted, but not insane. I’d faced worse than demons, far worse . . . and run away, but that’s another story. “And why are you so sure this is one of my kind?”

“It’s not Heaven; it’s not Hell. There is no rhyme or reason to the levels of demons killed. No gain for an upper to take out a UPS-level demon. So that leaves only the païen. You and yours are always so full of surprises. It’s why I like you, and I do so so like you.” He saluted, his sword and fist banging his chest. “Hail, Trixa. To the end of our days. And they will end . . . for one of us.” Cocky smile still in place, he melted back into the crowd until he was gone.

“Armand is his second in command, then,” Griffin said, moving up beside me.

“Armand is a snack who’s currently picking up Eligos’s dry cleaning and having his car detailed,” I corrected. “Useful for a while, but still a snack when all’s said and done. Like Eli said, there’s no point in a higher demon eating a lower one, but sucking the energy from one close to your level, that’s worthwhile. And either Armand doesn’t get it or he’s hoping to turn the tables.”

“He’s stupid, then,” Zeke offered as he rocked back and forth on his heels, already bored.

“Not stupid, Kit, but not quite as bright as his boss.” He might be a duke in Hell, but he was no Eligos. The clock was ticking on him. My only regret was I wouldn’t be there to see it hit midnight. Looking from left to right at my boys, I changed the subject. “Who wants lunch? My treat.” Because when you didn’t pay, it really was a treat. “But snap snap.” I pulled out my phone and punched in a number. Why is it that the clairvoyant never call you first? I have a psychic to talk to.” And, depending on what he told me, the clock was ticking on him too. Only much faster.

Tick.

Tock.