Trick of the Light

Chapter 9

I broke the news about the new demon to Leo that night when we were readying the bar for the night owls—they tended to be messier than the daytime crowd. His eyes narrowed as though it was somehow my fault, but he only grunted, “Harems went out of style a while ago.”

I started emptying the dishwasher and hanging glasses above the bar. “Please,” I said scornfully, “I’m hardly some leather-wearing monster killer with a cadre of hot men and demons waiting on my every sexual whim.” I paused, a glass held in midair. Leo started to speak and I held up a finger on my free hand. “Wait a minute. I’m still contemplating why I’m not that and wondering how to change it.”

He snapped a bar towel against my ass. “Spare me. Your tawdry fantasies are not something I want to think about.”

“Tawdry?” I hung the glass and admitted it. “Okay, tawdry, but I’ll make you head harem boy. First in my heart and loins.”

“Harem man,” he corrected, “and no thanks. I don’t look good in pantaloons.”

“Oh, the harem goes naked at all times . . . unless buttless chaps are involved.” I gave him a wink and finished with the glasses. “All the better to serve my depraved needs.”

“You’re depraved, all right; I’m just not sure it’s sexually,” he grunted as the door opened to admit the first alcoholic of the evening. “And you’re wearing leather right now.”

I looked down at the rich color of the brown pants I was wearing. “It’s faux. That doesn’t count. They don’t let you in the club of Monster Layers of America unless you wear the real cow. It’s in the bylaws. You also have to like male-on-male porn. That’s even above owning your own whip.” I poured a whiskey for the customer. “Too bad I only qualify for one out of three.”

Leo held his hand up. “Don’t tell me. Please. I’ll beg if you really push it, but please don’t tell me. There’s a reason straight men call it a devil’s threesome and it has nothing to do with demons.”

It was teasing between us. Long honed from an even longer history. The temptation was always there, but Leo and I both knew it couldn’t last, and the fact that we might outdo nuclear explosions before we separated still wouldn’t be worth losing what we had now. We might not be together sexually, but we were together in so many other ways—in all other ways. We were friends and family and lately warriors shoulder to shoulder. That was much better than a harem.

As for the Monster Layers of America . . .

Besides, stare into the abyss and it stares back into you. Follow that to its natural conclusion when it came to sleeping with demons. And that’s what Solomon and Eli were, no matter their charm and appeal. One of their kind had killed Kimano . . . as so many of them killed others, over and over. Solomon seemed to think the fact that he limited himself to just taking souls made him a saint. To hear him talk, it was no worse than a person eating a hot dog. At least Solomon’s meal had agreed to it—the pig hadn’t. And I was far from being a vegetarian; I’d yet to come up with a good answer to that one. That people were better and more deserving of life than animals wasn’t it. I’d never met a dog I didn’t like. I’d met plenty of people I couldn’t say the same about.

Solomon said he didn’t kill, but . . . demons lie. All demons.

Didn’t they?

Now Eli . . . Eli definitely lied and he definitely killed. That I knew as surely as anything. Souls would never be enough for him. He was a demon—as much as he looked like a man—who would crave variety, infinite and in any fashion he could get it. Eli existed for every experience he could get, because for him life was the opposite of short. Instead, life was endless. How to fill the millions of hours . . . days . . . years.

Why, sweetheart—I could see that disarming grin—anyway I can.

The night was unusually quiet despite our preparation. No demonic hordes. No wounded friends in pain. No wispy little girls and fat, waddling dogs. It was just half the number of the usual drinkers, sports fans glued to the TV, and the occasional hooker. Not legal inside the city limits, but if they could put up with what they did for the few bucks they needed to survive, I wasn’t going to kick them out. “Nice night,” Leo observed.

And it stayed that way until I was escorting a wobbly patron to his cab. Getting the door open with one hand, I used the other to grab his waistband as he started to go down and tossed him in the back with one heave. “Damn, lady, you got some muscle on you,” the cabbie observed.

“Pilates,” I responded. “I like a good workout.”

“You work out killing my brethren.” Solomon’s dark velvet voice came from behind me.

I turned as the cab drove away, folded one arm under my breasts, and kept the other free in case I needed my gun. “From what I hear, I’m not the only one.” Not that he was wrong. Fighting demons was great for toning. I should’ve bought an infomercial. “You’d just as soon kill one another. You higher demons anyway.” The mud-colored demons, the lowest of the former angels, seemed to follow the orders of the other demons. Like Solomon had said, or the equivalent of, if you were a mail clerk in Heaven, you were a mail clerk in Hell. “Or so Eligos tells me. Don’t tell me you haven’t been completely open with me, Solomon. Where is the trust there?”

“As if you ever gave me an ounce of it to begin with.” His face was blank. I wasn’t sure I’d seen it that way before, a canvas empty of seduction, anger, manipulation, and the darkness. “If you play with Eligos, Trixa, if you give him the smallest pinhole of an opening, you’ll only wish he’d killed you.”

“I don’t know.” The moon was high above us, almost the same orange as the Vegas night sky. “He seemed more honest than you. A killer, I’m sure. But I learned more about demons at a lunch with him than I learned in years of knowing you. And here I thought you were all on the same side, one nether-world united under god—god of darkness anyway. But that’s not so. I’ve been negotiating with you when I could’ve opened the field to all bidders. Why didn’t you tell me that, Solomon?”

“I’m a demon,” he growled. I noticed they used that justification quite a bit. “Self-interest is part of the package, believe it or not. I’m not a killer, but I’m not perfect either. Are you?”

I knew that, naturally—it was hard to forget someone was a demon—but it opened him up. That canvas was painted with all sorts of emotion now. It had taken me a while to determine that demons did have real emotions outside murderous rage and homicidal hunger, but they did. They had pride, envy, boredom, fun . . . unfortunately, the fun was a result of the rage and hunger the majority of the time.

“And you don’t know Eligos. The things he’s done. The ambitions he has. He would raze this entire city with blood and fire and a thousand demons to get what he wants,” he warned, stepping closer to me, his hand reaching out to cup my cheek. I let him. Why? A question best answered later when I couldn’t feel the beat of his pulse through his palm. “He would take you apart inch by inch, slice by slice. He would make death seem like the rarest and most wonderful dream you could fathom. He would do anything to get the Light. Anything.”

“And you wouldn’t?” I said softly.

His hand dropped away from my face, but I could still feel the warm imprint of it. A demon’s touch was never cold, or maybe that was just Solomon’s. “There are things I wouldn’t do. I know you don’t believe me, but it’s the truth.” He gave a rueful smile. “A demon can speak it once in a while.” He stepped back, asphalt scraping under his black boots. “Perhaps if you would tell me what you want for the Light, we could gain a little more trust between us. A demon, but which demon? And why?” His eyes sharpened on me. “Did you tell Eligos?”

“I did, but you . . . ” I looked at him with skepticism, distrust, and an emotion I doubted he could guess, even with all the souls he’d taken over the years. He may have devoured them, but that didn’t mean he understood me. “You, I’ve known a lot longer. Distrusted a lot longer. When we find the Light, then I’ll tell you what I want. Who and why. It’ll keep you hungry and sharp, and that in turn will provide a check to Eden House and Eli.”

“You play us all against one another.” His smile was grim. “You would make a good demon, Trixa. Eating you would be a waste of a good soldier.” He moved closer, his breath as warm as his hand. “A waste of an incomparable soul.”

The door to the bar opened and Solomon slipped a card into my hand. “Have dinner with me tonight. In an hour.” He hesitated, then added a word I would’ve guessed he didn’t even know. “Please.” Then he was gone in a minitornado of black smoke. Showy bastard.

Leo stood in the doorway with a shotgun. “Either you’re playing games, and you might die because of it. Or you’re not playing games—and you will die because of it.”

I followed him back inside. “Trust me. I know what I’m doing.” Dinner. That was a new one. After three years, maybe he thought he’d try a different approach than threats or straight seduction. It might be interesting.

“I do trust you.” He flipped the bar towel over his shoulder and put the shotgun back behind the bar. “You’re the only one I trust, but I’ve seen you lose your temper. And what you feel about Kimano is far beyond simply losing your temper. You could lose your mind before this is all over.”

I touched the Pele’s tear that hung around my neck, and thought to myself, Who says I haven’t already? To Leo I said, “I have to go change. I have a date.” Ignoring his exasperated sigh, I disappeared up the stairs and reappeared a half hour later.

Leo was still waiting, propped on a bar stool with arms crossed. “Nice,” he rumbled. “Red dress, tight, lots of perfume. Not like a hooker at all.”

“It’s not perfume. It’s deodorant.” And the dress was not that tight. “You think I should try to charm information out of him with my faded T-shirt, holey jeans, and the sweet smell of perspiration?”

“Your idea of charm is to shoot a demon in the head instead of the dick,” he said dryly. “But I know better than to try to stop you. Go seduce away. Sleep with him if you think you need to, but think about what Kimano would say about that.”

“I am not sleeping with him.” I shot him a poisonous glare. “If I had a bumper sticker, it would read, ‘Demon slayer, not demon layer.’ ”

“Your mouth says no, but your cleavage says yes.”

I looked down automatically, but saw the same as usual. I was a medium B cup. The only way I was going to get “yes” cleavage was with a fifty-dollar bra or the Army Corps of Engineers. “You are such an ass.”

“That’s better than what I used to be.” He flashed a grin and started closing up the bar. He waited until I was at the door before he said, “Be careful.”

I gave him a grin just as bright. “You should’ve given that advice to Solomon.” He simply shook his head in resignation and finished turning out the lights as I opened the front door to pass through. Unlike most Vegas bars, we closed when we felt like it. Usually at one or two. Tonight had been fairly empty, and we’d closed at midnight. That was a little late for a dinner, but in Vegas, time has no meaning. The card Solomon had given me was of a very upscale, difficult-to-get-into restaurant that served until four a.m. And miracle of miracles, it wasn’t on the Strip.

Soon enough I was handing my much-abused car over to a dubious valet. The restaurant was called Green Silk. Green wasn’t my color, but I appreciated the atmosphere. Candles and candles alone lit the dining room. It made each table seem like the only one there. Once I was escorted to Solomon’s table, we were promptly deserted. Usually in a place like this you would have a waiter hovering by your table in case a crumb should fall or you should need a single drop of wine to restore the liquid in your glass to the perfect level. Privacy was a nice change, although when it came down to it, I preferred pizza joints, Greek food, Ethiopian, a hot dog stand . . . anything run by people, real people—not mannequins. Places where you could laugh and not shatter the paper-thin crystal glasses at your table.

Solomon had stood as I was seated, then sat again. “You look. . . .” He smiled and raised his glass, already filled with wine. “I have no words.”

“Funny. Leo had quite a few words.” I tasted my wine. It was the good stuff, as they say, very, very good. There were some advantages to the high life.

“But you came anyway.” Solomon put his glass down. “Have you ever listened to anyone in your life, Trixa?”

“Oh, I listen and then I do what I want, but I do listen. I’m not rude.” I had another sip and savored the cherry and spice flavor of it.

“Homicidal, seemingly suicidal at times, with a smart mouth you never bother to rein in, but not rude. I see.” His eyes were warm in the candlelight. “In all my years, and they have been many, I’ve not met anyone quite like you.”

“No?” Food was placed before me. Solomon had taken the liberty of ordering before I’d arrived—I hated it when dates did that, but this wasn’t a date, I reminded myself. And as it was a small, enormously thick, and extremely tender piece of steak, I let it go. “I still think I’ve met plenty like you. So, tell me, Solomon—make me truly believe you aren’t like all your kin. Tell me. . . .” I thought for a moment. “Tell me about the Fall. The real story, not the made-for-TV version.”

His eyes went from warm to somber. “It’s not as different as you might think.” He looked at his own steak but didn’t cut it. It seemed his appetite was gone. Slowly, he started. “Lucifer was best loved by God, when he was an angel. You’ve heard that, I know. But fathers shouldn’t do that. They shouldn’t love one of their offspring more than the others. And that’s what we thought we were . . . children of God—not tools. But actually we were creations with a purpose, no more a child than a television or a car. Lucifer was the first to tell us it wasn’t right. He told us that if he ruled Heaven, he’d be our father and he would love us as children and love us all the same.”

“And did he mean it?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. At the time I was sure that he did. God didn’t deny what he said. He said nothing and left it up to us . . . with our precious free will . . . to decide. In the face of that silence, it didn’t cross my mind that Lucifer might lie, that God might be testing us.” Solomon was looking into my eyes, but I didn’t think I was the one he saw. “Lucifer was an angel. Angels do not lie, or didn’t then, and, truthfully, we thought him the best and brightest of us all. If you could have seen him. His face was the sun, his wings the moon, and now”—his lips pressed tightly together and he drained his glass—“you would die. One glimpse of him and you would die. When we fell, we all became the opposite of what we were. He changed most of all. Our would-be father was turned into something so hideous, even we demons can only glance at him from the corner of our eye. The Morning Star fell, and an endlessly hungry Abyss came to life. Destroying him would’ve been much kinder. But perhaps he deserves it for taking us all with him.”

I was quiet for a moment as he abruptly turned and called for more wine. When he had it and was making his way through it with a grim intensity that had a passing waiter wincing at the lack of appreciation for its age and taste, I asked, “You said free will. I’ve always wondered how there could be a revolution in Heaven if angels had no free will. That doesn’t make any sense. How could you rise up without wills of your own? I know angels learn it eventually if they spend enough time among humans, but the Fall was a long time ago.”

He put the glass down and gave a faint smile, pleased to be one up on me for once. “Contrary to popular argument, angels did have free will in the beginning. It was after we were cast down that God stripped free will from the remaining angels. Not much of a reward for loyalty, is it?”

Or perhaps he thought it was like a fast car and a sixteen-year-old new driver. Dangerously beyond their control. Not that it mattered. The angels that interacted with humans on a regular basis regained the will they’d lost. I’d seen it, seen them. It didn’t automatically make them the Precious Moments angels with the oh-so-cute tipped halo. Free will can make you a saint or a bastard. There were no guarantees. “So demons didn’t learn free will on their own. They had it all along?”

He raised his glass. “We did and we kept it. The one single parting gift left to us by God. Which is ironic. Since with our free will many of us wanted to return home.”

“Even if you had had to lose that free will if He let you in?”

“To be in his grace again, it would be worth it. Even without, even as not best loved.” He pushed his untouched plate away.

Give up my free will? There was no grace worth that. He read my face. “You don’t know. You can’t know.” For a second, bleak misery flickered behind the gray as his hand fisted on the table. “Grace and home, I’ll never have either again.”

There were two sides to every story—three sides on some occasions, but I couldn’t say that to him, not then. Instead I reached over to rest my hand over his fist. He turned his hand under mine to clasp my wrist lightly. “I want the Light, Trixa, but I want you too. I always have. To talk with you, laugh with you, to sleep late in cool sheets with you.” His pupils dilated. “To be inside you. To be one with you.”

“Clichéd,” I said, a faint flush warming my face. “So very clichéd.”

“But effective?” he smiled.

We didn’t talk about the Light as I’d expected. We didn’t talk about anything else at all. We sat and stared at each other before he kissed my wrist and let me go. I went. I hesitated at the table and I looked back at him halfway across the room, but I went. As I took my last look at the strong planes of his face years familiar now, I thought. . . .

Solomon, what am I going to do with you?

It was a good thing that I flew the “Slayer Not Layer” flag, because when I did get home, my bed wasn’t empty. There wasn’t room for Solomon. There wasn’t room for me either.

Zeke was sitting cross-legged in the middle of my bed, unloading and reloading his gun. I blinked. No, he was really there. He and Griffin had gone back to their house earlier. They had a dingy box of a house in a concrete alley in a neighborhood over by Lake Mead in North Vegas. It was a perfect choice for them—a part of town so bad that an occasional gunshot from a demon attack wouldn’t be investigated by their neighbors or the police.

I was sure Griffin would’ve preferred something more like the District at Green Valley where expensive condos were located over the top of expensive stores, all painted a rainbow of pastel colors that reminded me of the houses known as Painted Ladies in Charleston, South Carolina. Gracious Southern living brought to the West. Griffin did like the finer things in life, the things he’d never had as a foster kid. But personally I felt my brain twitch at the thought of shotgun-toting Zeke living above a Pottery Barn or a Williams-Sonoma.

The outside of their current shack might have been for work, but the inside was the dream bachelor retreat. Huge flat-screen TV mounted on the wall, surround sound, slate floor, leather couch and chairs, spartan glass and bamboo wood kitchen, all in desert colors. Griffin had gone all out, although the TV was probably Zeke’s baby. If Griffin couldn’t live where he wanted location wise, he’d make the inside up to his standards. Then it had been a simple matter of Zeke using his telepathy to pick out the dealers and thieves in the neighborhood, knock on their door, and stick a shotgun muzzle in their face with a matter-of-fact, “Do not fuck with our house. Do not fuck with our car. Do not fuck with the blond guy.” Thanks in advance for your cooperation and lack of future bloodstains on our driveway. I doubted he’d actually added the last sentence. Politeness wasn’t one of Zeke’s strong points. I also knew Griffin didn’t need Zeke acting as his bodyguard. He was as deadly a fighter in his own right. He didn’t need babysitting.

I looked at him now on my bed, and thought to myself that it could be there was an exception to that. They must’ve come up the back stairs sometime in the last few hours. “You’d better not get gun oil on my bedspread,” I warned Zeke.

He didn’t look up. He’d heard me come up the stairs and open the door. Probably heard me breathing. Zeke was uncanny that way. So was Griffin. Eden House training or natural talent? I was betting on the latter. “Griffin is sleeping,” he said unnecessarily.

And he was, as I’d noticed. In my bed like Goldilocks. I’d seen he was lying beside Zeke when I’d walked into my bedroom, but I hadn’t really wanted to notice or see, so I’d managed to push it to the back of my mind. The bathtub, believe it or not, was not a comfortable place to spend the night and I was seeing that in my future again. “I see that. And why aren’t you both asleep at home in your own place?”

“Because all he does is sleep. I had to drag him here.” Zeke finished with the gun and holstered it. “He won’t eat. He won’t get up. He just sleeps. And if he just sleeps, he’s not there to help me know what to do. He’s not there to talk to me. He’s”—his light eyes darkened with the slightest edge of panic—“not there.”

I sat on the other side of him, although there wasn’t much room. I wrapped an arm around his shoulder. It was a lot like embracing a cactus. He only allowed Griffin to touch him without tensing up, at least while conscious. But I gave him a few minutes and he relaxed minutely under my touch. “You were out of it for two days. The drugs knocked you out, but the pain was still there. Not to mention the worry. Griffin didn’t know if you’d make it. The doctors said yes and there was a good chance, but things happen. Griffin has been with you . . . what? Since he was ten and you were eight? That must feel like his whole life that he’s looked after you. He felt like he failed you when the demons took you down; he felt all your pain even when you were out. If he slept for a week, I wouldn’t be surprised. His body is exhausted and so is his mind. Whisper didn’t heal him like she did you.”

He was silent for a moment, then asked belligerently, “Why not?”

“Because healing bodies is simple for a healer, but healing minds isn’t. At least that’s what a healing friend of mine said a long time ago. It’s just the way things are.” I smoothed his hair and tugged at the short copper ponytail. “You want to stay here tonight?” I asked.

His eyes moved over to Griffin and he laid a hand on the slowly rising and falling back. “I want . . .” He stopped and started over, more honestly. “I need help to watch him. If the demons come, he won’t be ready. Not as ready as he needs to be. I have to protect him.”

Like he protects you. I understood perfectly. “Okay. No problem.” I waited for him to offer to sleep in the tub since Leo was still sleeping on the couch downstairs. And I kept waiting. Finally, I said, “How about I sleep with Griffin and you take the tub and some blankets.”

“No.” He went for one of his knives this time, one from an ankle holster, and began polishing it—with my bedspread. My expensive, well-loved bedspread.

“Zeke . . .”

“No.” This time he scowled. “He’s my partner. I’ll guard him. Understand?”

Indeed I did. More than he himself, I thought. I looked at the tub and grumbled under my breath. I really was too softhearted for my own good . . . no matter how many demons I’d killed. I grabbed blankets, enough for a thick pseudomattress and one to cover me. I also took a pillow and climbed in. It was a huge, roomy tub, but it still wasn’t a bed. “You owe me, you know?” I told Zeke over the edge before pulling the curtain and changing into pajamas.

“I know,” he answered without emotion. “I owe you everything I have in my life. I won’t ever forget that.”

“But I still can’t sleep with Griffin?” I groused, as I tried to find a comfortable position.

“No.” This time he sounded faintly amused. I pushed the curtain back and peered over the porcelain edge just in time to see the small smile disappear.

Sneaky dog. I curled up in the fetal position, felt for the gun under my pillow, and dozed off. Whether Zeke slept at all I wasn’t sure, but when I woke up in the morning he was in the same position and this time cleaning my weapons. At least he wasn’t using my bedspread this round. It was an improvement. I don’t, as a rule, get attached to things. That was the way of the traveler, but I’d been in Vegas longer than I’d been anywhere else. Things started to creep in. Bedspreads. Whimsically carved beds. A large hunk of amber encasing a trapped spider from long ago. That was actually to remind me. I might be in a cage now, one of my own making, but I’d get out eventually, when I’d accomplished everything I’d set out to do. Then again, the amber was a particularly fine orange-gold. Like being cradled by the sun—comfortable and warm. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing to stick around a place for a while. Oh, hell, what was I thinking?

I’d been here ten years. That was a record for my family. Apparently it was taking a toll on my sanity, along with everything else that was going on. I was a wanderer, born and bred. I had to give it up temporarily for the Light and for Kimano, but I’d wander again. It was my nature, and natures don’t change. Hair color, breast size, houses, cars, schools, and jobs—all of it changed. Every second of every day there was change, but never the spots. You were born with spots and you died with the exact same ones.

I looked at Griffin and Zeke. Then again, there was always the occasional exception to trip you up.

“He’s still not up?” I climbed out of the tub, the wrinkles falling out of the silk pajamas as I stood.

“No.” He sat there with two of my guns in my lap; his hands had stopped moving. “Maybe he’d rather stay where he is. I’m nothing more than a damn anchor around his neck.”

He sounded defeated and angry and neither emotion was like Zeke. There were long stretches where someone who didn’t know him would wonder if he had any emotion at all. He did. He just kept it buried in a dark place, a place I thought was probably host to cold bathwater and a drowned baby. The way he was showing it now was an indication of how truly upset he was.

“You’re his friend, Zeke, and you’re his purpose. He’s lucky to have you, more than you know. Knowing your true purpose in life, that’s a miracle.” I padded over to the bed. “I’ll show you.” I put a hand on Griffin’s shoulder and shook him. “Wake up, sleepy-head.”

His head was turned on the pillow facing Zeke. His eyes flickered instead of snapping open immediately, evidence of his exhaustion, but when they did open, they fixed on Zeke first and foremost. They showed instant relief; then he frowned. “Is it morning? Have you had breakfast?”

Zeke returned to the guns as if he hadn’t been worried, as if he didn’t even know what worry was, but I saw his jaw relax. “No. I was cleaning Trixa’s guns.”

The frown intensified. “Did you eat supper last night?”

“No. I was cleaning my guns. Guns are more important than food.”

Griffin sat up. “You woke me up and made me eat something. I wouldn’t call it food, but it was microwaved, so I’m guessing you would.”

“That was lunch. I couldn’t wake you up for supper. And someone has to take care of you. You’re weak and frail,” Zeke said with a sardonic twist of his lips—there and gone so quickly you could convince yourself that you imagined it. “Like a little girl. You asked for a pudding cup.”

“I did not,” Griffin growled. Griffin of the fine food and fine clothes, who had given up the pedestrian things of a foster child life the moment Eden House had showered him with money. The words “pudding cup” almost literally horrified him. We all do our best to deal in different ways.

“All this codependency is bringing a tear to my eye, but get up and go eat, the both of you,” I ordered. “At the diner around the corner. I’m ready for a little alone time.” I hadn’t had any in quite a few days. I wanted it, I needed it, and despite them obeying me, I still didn’t get much.

Fifteen minutes after Griffin and Zeke had gone, Leo was calling for me. I came down the stairs to see Mr. Trinity and his entourage. I was still in my pajamas, but while silk, they covered me neck to ankle. I doubted it would’ve made any difference if I’d come down stark naked or with tasseled pasties rotating like propellers. I didn’t think Mr. Trinity was into sex . . . with either gender. He was an asexual pillar of ice. I didn’t even know that I was a person to him instead of just a thing to accomplish his goal. It seemed all of him, every speck, molecule, iota, belonged to his Creator. His focus lay in serving him and only him. And pardon my political incorrectness, but it was creepy as hell. What was worse was imagining how he might feel if he knew God wasn’t giving him his orders . . . angels were, angels who were using him as a windup tin soldier and didn’t necessarily have a clue as to what God wanted.

“You’ve had your time,” he said, charcoal suit impeccably tailored. “Where is the next signpost?”

“Orange juice,” I told Leo, who was standing behind the bar. He poured and handed it to me and I was grateful for the slug of vodka he’d included. He was a man who really knew how to read a woman, especially one who wasn’t particularly a morning person when the night before was spent in the bathtub. I drank the squat glass down and sighed. Better. I turned back to Mr. Trinity with his four men dressed a little more casually, although certainly not Zeke-casual, but enough for fighting demons if they had to. “San Diego. The next bread crumb is in San Diego.”

“We leave this afternoon. I’ll have someone pick you up at four,” he said flatly. Then he turned and, followed by his loyal dogs, was gone.

I sat on a bar stool and raised my eyebrows. “If only my trips to the gynecologist were that quick and efficient.”

“On that note, I’m going to balance the books and puncture my eardrums.” Leo tossed his towel onto the bar. “Do you want me to come to San Diego with you?”

“No. I’ll be surrounded by Eden House’s second best and most anal.” I tried for the dregs of the OJ. “I’ll most likely be safe from our downstairs neighbors. Will you be okay? I’m leaving Zeke and Griffin to stay here with you. Considering the time they’ve had, their place might not be the best place for them. Besides, they can act as your bodyguards,” I teased.

“Don’t insult me.” He snorted. “You want me to look after them, I take it? You’re aware my paycheck doesn’t cover babysitting.”

“Pretend they’re family.” I handed him the glass and he put it in the dishwasher.

“You do remember how I got along with my family in the days when they were still speaking to me?” he asked wryly.

True. His family was definitely not my family. They lived at one another ’s throats and Leo was the worst of them all. Or he had been. He’d changed over the years. Well, not changed so much as mellowed a few thousand degrees. Same spots but greatly faded. I hoped one day they would give him a chance to prove that. But the bad blood between Leo and his father was very bad indeed. Bile, black and acidic. That kind of burn would take a long time to cool. Either that or a catastrophe.

Later, I’d be thinking how hindsight was such the bitch.

“Someday”—I pulled at the black braid that trailed down his chest—“someday they’ll see you for what you are now . . . if I have to kick the ass of each and every one. I promise.”

“That might be the one thing that does it. They fear you almost as much as they did me.” He returned the favor by wrapping one of my messy curls around his finger. “And with good reason.”

“You always were one with a compliment.” I slapped his chest and ordered, “And treat Zeke and Griffin like my family, then, not yours.” I told him this, but I didn’t need to. Leo had treated them just that way, just as I had, from day one. Strays who needed help; strays who’d become adopted family because if we didn’t do it, no one else would. And honestly no one else was as qualified as we were. Just because I sold information that occasionally led to the end of a rotten, cheating, and abusive soul didn’t mean I also didn’t have sympathy for those who deserved it.

Although these days, fewer and fewer seemed to. Maybe it was the crowd I’d started running with. Demons and the lackeys of angels. I was no one’s lackey.

And despite what Mr. Trinity thought when he arrived to pick me up, I certainly wasn’t his.