Trick of the Light

Chapter 7

The helicopter had brought us to Eden House. They, like everyone else, definitely had a finger in this pie. So here I finally was, and this time it wasn’t just hearing Griffin describe its elegant glory of antiques, the library of secret books and documents that historians would give ten years of their lives to see, and the magnificent showcase of ancient demon-fighting weapons.

Or Zeke saying, “Yeah, it’s big. Hard to find the bathrooms. Now can I have another beer?” I was here to see it with my own eyes. Unfortunately, the higher-ups knew it. They now knew about Leo and me, and knew that we knew about them . . . worse yet, about the Light. And you can bet they didn’t like it—all that knowing. They were probably discussing it right now, their complete and utter dislike of it all.

The hell with it. There was nothing I could do about it now, and I had something far more important right in front of me.

I held Zeke’s limp hand and rubbed the pad of my thumb softly across the back of it. He was still out of it, drugged to the gills, but he was off the ventilator and on an oxygen mask. I took that as a good sign. He was in a hospital bed, and for all intents and purposes was in his own hospital ICU. It was in Eden House’s basement. He was hooked up to a heart monitor, oxygen, a pulse oximeter to read the level of oxygen in his blood, IVs . . . too many things to count.

A sheet was pulled up to his hospital gown-clad chest. Next to all that white and green, he was gray. The ashy skin next to the color of his gown wasn’t a good combination and it made me feel . . . I looked over my shoulder and let Griffin feel that mood. I didn’t bury it or hide it as I usually did. I let him feel it because it let him feel it himself—something I didn’t think he’d allowed himself. Not until then.

He stood by my side as I sat. “He’ll be all right.” He was telling himself the same as he was telling me. “The doctors said that he’s recovering faster than they anticipated.” He reached down and lightly knuckled the top of the unconscious, reddish bronze head. It was the same move a kid would make to another kid—a younger one. It wasn’t surprising. They’d been in the same foster home since they were ten and twelve, at least until they came to me five years later. When something had gone drastically wrong. Griffin had always said it was Zeke’s story to tell.

He changed his mind.

Why? Could’ve been any number of reasons. He could’ve known that Zeke would never tell. It might have been he was still so angry over what had happened back then that he had to tell someone and that someone wasn’t going to be a member of Eden House. They valued Zeke for his strong psychic skills, but without Griffin around to keep him in check, Eden House wouldn’t have anything to do with Zeke. And I think Griffin had just now realized that. He’d seen them virtually kidnap Leo and me and for a thing his boss refused to elaborate on. He would name it, but he wouldn’t explain it.

Kidnapping and secrets. That wasn’t the milk of human kindness. That wasn’t someone you could rely on to take care of a psychosocially damaged man. If something happened to Griffin, as far as the House was concerned Zeke would be on his own, or worse. A rogue psychic whose sense of judgment didn’t allow for shades of gray, who saw the action that needed taking, but not always the consequences of that action . . . a man whose actions might be traced back to them. They wouldn’t allow it. Remember Lot’s wife? And she’d just looked in the wrong direction.

And that was why Griffin told me, the true reason. He wasn’t a stupid man. To the contrary, he was extremely sharp at sizing up people. Now he was sizing up his own people and they were falling short. Should a demon get the better of him, he wanted Zeke taken care of, and Leo and I were the only ones who could do it.

“It was a baby, but he didn’t mean to.” He bowed his head and rubbed the back of his neck with enough force that I winced for him. “You don’t think he’d still hold on to that enough to not come back, do you?”

“He’s not leaving us,” I said with determination. “That’s a promise. And you know I keep my promises, Griffin.”

I waited as he straightened and folded his arms to watch the methodical beep beep of Zeke’s heart monitor. “His throat.” He looked away from the monitor, from Zeke, from everything, and stared at the closed door that led out of the room to the hall. “After he realized what had happened. After he knew.” He looked back at me and I saw the eyes of a traumatized seventeen-year-old. Not a twenty-seven-year-old man, but a boy—a boy who’d seen too much death long before he ever knew demons existed. That monsters were real. “He walked into the kitchen. Just walked. Everyone was screaming. Our foster father”—his lip curled—“was so helpfully kicking in the TV screen. I was calling 911 and Zeke just walked past me and went to the drawer by the sink, took out a butcher knife, and tried to cut his throat.”

The ugly three-inch furrow across the otherwise-smooth skin had been half healed when they’d shown up at my place. “You stopped him,” I said without doubt because Zeke wouldn’t have stopped himself. He never did. When he started something, he finished it . . . if he knew what the end was. It was a lucky thing that Zeke had been so young, or he would’ve cut deep enough to have bled to death even from those few inches. But at fifteen, his killing skills weren’t what they were today.

I stood and pushed Griffin into the chair. As much as my back burned, he needed the rest more than I did. “There was a baby and Zeke tried to cut his own throat. Help me out a little, Griffin. I’m lost.”

And tired, hungry, and more than a little concerned that Leo and I’d been outed to Eden House by those damn nosy angels at Wilbur the Buddhist’s place in the desert. I was assuming that’s why the helicopters had shown up so conveniently.

But enough time for that later. Time for this now.

“There was a baby?” I prompted, and leaned against his shoulder.

He exhaled, froze as the heart monitor alarmed for a second, then relaxed again when it quieted back to its rhythmic beeping. “Bob and Angie. Good old bored, fat Bob and good old clueless, even fatter Angie. They were foster parents for a living. That’s all they did. Take in kids, especially special kids like Zeke. They were paid more money to take special ones. They had six then, including Zeke and me. The youngest was David. He was one, one and a half. I never was very good at guessing ages of little kids.” He leaned back and closed his eyes. “The social workers told them, told our foster parents, never to leave Zeke unsupervised with things that could hurt him or others. Told them all about his problems and how long it had taken him to even learn to do things on his own, simple things like dress himself. He had to be told. And when he improved: Turn on the stove; make your macaroni; turn off the stove. Eat macaroni; wash dishes; put them away. The stubborn bastard learned.”

He shifted against me restlessly. “He made it to the point he could function almost normally, except for that black and white outlook he has. Because of that, how it affected his decision making, how he couldn’t see past the immediate, he still needed supervision and they didn’t give it to him. I knew he needed it. All the other kids who were old enough knew it—the only ones who didn’t bother to pay fucking attention were the adults.”

He went quiet. I waited for nearly ten minutes before I bent and rested my chin on top of his head. “The baby?”

One more minute of silence and he said without emotion, “Angie told him to give the baby a bath. ‘Zeke, get off your ass and give that filthy baby a bath,’ is probably what she said while she sat on her worthless own fat ass watching her soaps. I was still at school, some after-hours thing, so Zeke . . . he gave the baby a bath.” He exhaled heavily. “Until two kids got into a fight in the kitchen.”

Violence: Zeke’s number-one draw. The flashing red alarm. Protect the innocent; punish the guilty. My mind painted the image easily enough. Off he ran, fifteen-year-old special Zeke, to break up the fight. To keep the smaller kid from being hurt, to show the bigger one exactly what it was like to be beaten on. By the time that was over, by the time that developmentally different, single-minded brain of his remembered . . .

I could see a blue-gray little boy floating facedown in the cooling bath water when Zeke ran back. Blubbery Angie heaving her way off the couch to berate him for making more noise breaking up the fight than the fight itself. Following him to yell at him for being so damn loud and drowning out her stories.

Then the screams, the accusations, the shouted, poisonous blame.

Zeke realizing it was his fault . . . no, not realizing, because it wasn’t his fault. But Zeke being blamed for it, being told it was his fault, and going to punish himself. A hand for a hand, an eye for an eye: That’s the only justice Zeke had in him.

“I got home just in time,” Griffin went on. “Not for David, but for Zeke. I stopped him. I took him and ran. Whom would the social workers believe? Not that it mattered anyway. That had been his last chance. He’d gone through too many homes, too many foster parents who didn’t give a damn about watching a kid, really watching him. If this last one didn’t work out, they were going to institutionalize him. Stamp him ‘not able to function in the outside world.’ ”

“But you saved him.” I watched Zeke’s chest rise and fall a little more raggedly than made me happy, but at least it still moved. “Did he ever forgive himself?”

“No.” He gave a half laugh without an ounce of humor. “It’s why he likes fighting demons so much. He says he plans on spending eternity doing it when he dies. Why not get the practice now?”

“Zeke. Kit.” I straightened and moved to him, touching a finger to my lips and then to his cheek, the cold plastic of the oxygen mask brushing my skin. “You’re not going to Hell. I promise you that.” I hoped at some level he heard me. I hoped he believed me. “And you’re not going to die either. Do you hear me?”

The door opened and Leo walked in with a tray of food. Eden House might try to dispose of us later, but at least for now they were going to feed us, which was a good thing, because I was starving. I have a high metabolism and when I lost weight, the first thing to go was my ass. I liked my ass; I wanted to keep it. It was great for sitting on and even better at making men do incredibly stupid things. By the time they realized my brain was far bigger, metaphorically speaking, it was usually too late for them. It was cheap and cheating, just a little, but when you’re in the information business, you use every asset you have to get the info you want, brain and body. Naturally, they only got to look, not touch, but men . . .

I snorted and took a plate from the tray and said to Leo, “Pigs. You’re all pigs.” Griffin raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth, but Leo shook his head. “Don’t bother,” he advised. “It’ll only make your head hurt.” He handed the tray to Griffin, took his own plate, and found a chair on the other side of Zeke’s bed. I joined him. “I have two guards that followed me from the kitchen here. They’re stationed outside the door with your guard, Trixa.” Black eyes sparked with humor as he took a bite of his sandwich.

“Three whole guards.” I dug into my own sandwich. When I finished half of it, I went on, “We’re doomed now.”

They’d asked for our guns and Leo’s Viking-looking sword before we boarded one of the copters and, at that moment, with machine guns being held casually ready for any returning demons or maybe two stubborn barkeeps, turning over our weapons was about the only choice we had. So we did. But only three guards? Insulting and a little less than smart.

“Not everyone is impressed by a bar owner and a jack-of-all-trades,” Leo reminded me.

True. Jackson Goodman, their second in command, knew Griffin and Zeke hung around my place, but he didn’t know we hunted demons on occasion with them. He definitely didn’t know what we were capable of. I would have preferred to keep it that way, but it didn’t look like that would be an option. Of course, they no doubt cared less about that now than about the Light of Life. Goodman was probably looking for a saw to cut off the top of my head so he could take a peek at my brain. See what the Light told me for himself. Eden House might not torture me as Jeb the Caver had been tortured, but then again, they might. I still didn’t know. And even if they were nice enough not to torture me, they weren’t going to let me go either, and that was the surest bet you’d find in Vegas. Not without getting something from me first.

Griffin seemed to know what I was thinking, which wouldn’t be hard, as I frowned my way through the second sandwich. “I’ll do my best to get you out of this,” he said. “I promise you that.”

In most cases it’s the thought that counts, but this time . . . I shook my head. “You don’t have a chance. They think I know where the Light is. They’re not going to let me go anywhere.”

“The Light of Life, Ms. Iktomi,” sounded the voice from the door, which had opened silently, so silently I hadn’t heard it, “belongs with us, or rather with him for whom we toil.”

And the owner of that voice would have to be Mr. Trinity, who now stood in the doorway. That wasn’t his real name. Zeke or Griffin had said that the head of any Eden House anywhere in the world was called Mr. Trinity. It was a title, an honor, a badge signifying whom he served. I wondered if they all had the same presence too, because this guy would make a demon scurry home to his mommy—or daddy as the case may be. He was six feet tall and broad shouldered with thick white hair and a startling slash of thick dark brows. His eyes matched them, the same color as Leo’s. He had to be in his early sixties, but his face was strong and unlined. If they made a movie of my life, he’d be played by Sean Connery and he would either seduce me or kick my ass, or both. And, let’s be honest, if it were a movie and Sean Connery, I’d let him. Either way, he’d get what he wanted—the Light—and I’d be nothing but a credit at the end.

It was just too bad for Mr. Trinity that this wasn’t a movie. Like I would give him the Light. Did he know who killed Kimano? Did he even know my brother had once lived? No. Could he find the demon who had taken his life? Doubtful. They were legion. A human couldn’t do it. Only a demon could.

And I had my money on Solomon. He wanted the Light just as badly as Mr. Trinity. It was easy to see why when you knew what it could do.

Like I told Mr. Trinity I knew.

Like I’d told Solomon at the battle.

All’s fair in love and war. Now imagine what’s reasonable in vengeance and fucking with my family. Mr. Trinity might be a ruthless leader, but I wasn’t sure he could quite imagine the things I was willing to do. Solomon was a demon. . . . Solomon might have an idea or two about my limits—as in none.

I patted my mouth with a napkin and folded my hands across my lap like the good girl I was. “Unless you have a red-hot poker in the next room”—I tilted my head just enough to let him know I didn’t think it completely beyond him—“you get nothing from me. At least not until I get what I want.”

By the way he clenched his fist, if that nonexistent red poker had been in his hand, I thought he would’ve used it. “And what, foolish, greedy woman, do you want?”

“Greedy.” I’d seen the money that went into and never came out of Eden House. It made me wonder . . . when had they forgotten that a camel would pass through the eye of a needle before a rich man entered Heaven? “Well, Mr. Trinity, this foolish woman has all the apples she needs, so I think you’ll find my price quite cheap for what the Light can do. It’s just one you can’t pay.”

He ignored the price check and focused on the rest of it. “What it can do. You think you know what it does?” Coldly but carefully lacking scorn. If I did know, he didn’t want to make me angry—it’s a pissed-off cow that gives little milk. I didn’t know if there was a folk saying in that exact form, but you could take it on truth in content.

“It’s the wall no horn can blow down.” Griffin and Trinity’s eyes were fixed on me. Leo’s weren’t. He already knew what I knew, what I’d known for a while. Trinity would assume I got the information from the Light itself via Wilbur. There was a calculating shift of his eyes—like Goodman, what Trinity wouldn’t give to pop the top to my skull and take an ice-pick jab and look for himself.

“If Jericho had the Light, it would still stand. The Light is neither of Heaven nor Hell, but before. Long before.”

“Blasphemy.” Trinity said it reflexively, without a lot of investment in it. He was more concerned about what I knew than offense to the Lord at the moment.

“It’s an unbreakable shield,” I went on. “Should war come between Heaven and Hell, whichever side had it would be completely protected.”

“What’s going on?” Griffin demanded.

“Torture, murder, and a race to the perfect weapon. Invulnerability,” Leo said matter-of-factly as he moved on to his next sandwich, unbothered by the violence that constructed those words. “That would make any war a short one.”

“God is invulnerable, not a Light,” Trinity said this time with a quiet certainty and power.

“Then why do you want the Light?” I didn’t even have to ask. Griffin did it for me.

“The Light is for Heaven. That’s all you need to know,” the older man replied brusquely. For Heaven maybe, but not for God, but no angel was going to tell the Eden Houses around the world that. Lose their human servants? Where was the benefit there?

“No one will stop us in obtaining it. Not a woman and not a demon,” he went on. Demon singular, as in Solomon, Trinity’s equal in Vegas. “Or hordes of demons. Every hell-spawn in existence can stand against us and it will not matter. Eden House has its orders.”

“Good for Eden House.” I stood and put the tray on the chair. “We should be going. Thanks for the hospitality, but I have a business to run and a Light to find.”

“I think not.” Mr. Trinity didn’t move, just as the three guards outside the door wouldn’t move—unless we made them. Then there would be reinforcements, and although I knew without a doubt that Griffin would back up Leo and me, someone would get hurt. And Zeke wasn’t even conscious. Griffin wouldn’t leave him if the fight went badly. I wouldn’t leave him.

It didn’t leave me with much choice. I didn’t trust Trinity, but maybe I should put a little trust in someone else—Solomon. Trust that when I finally came to the Light, he’d be right there for the bidding. He was involved. He’d shown that by appearing at Wilbur’s. I’d had to wonder why a demon stayed so long in one place, stayed so long in Vegas. Not simply for seducing me. I had ego, but I wasn’t a fool. It’d be nice to think all the eligible men and demons were after nothing more than my brain and smart-ass self, but it’d be nice to keep on breathing and living too. Delusion wasn’t very compatible with survival.

“I guess we have to negotiate, then.” I smiled with confident cheer. And I shouldn’t be so quick to assume Trinity couldn’t track down a demon. I shouldn’t be putting all my eggs in one basket with Solomon. I couldn’t afford to make a mistake. “Good thing I specialize in that.”

Trinity smiled back. There wasn’t any cheer in it at all. “Yes . . . good thing.”

The room I was provided with in Eden House was plush. No surprise there. Even if I weren’t quite as good at bargaining as I knew I was, Mr. Trinity wasn’t likely to put me in some sort of basement cell. He was too much of a gentleman for that. He might think I was a greedy woman. He might kill me Old Testament style, but bad manners? Never.

Once I’d made it clear that I didn’t know the Light’s location, only the whereabouts of the next bread crumb in a trail I didn’t know how long, and once I’d promised to deliver him to the Light and then talk price, he had let Leo go in a show of good faith. And Leo had gone in another show of good faith: that I could take care of myself.

Truthfully, I didn’t have to hit Trinity as hard as I’d thought with my skills of negotiation. I’d told him he couldn’t pay my price, but he hadn’t believed it. The head of Eden House was just like a common demon: He assumed everyone had a price and he could meet it. Shame on me—I was looking forward to seeing his expression when he was proven wrong. Then again, maybe he’d prove me wrong and do what I was depending on Solomon to do. Life is full of surprises that way. I’d had past plans combined with a smug attitude come back to bite me in the ass before. Best to stay open-minded . . . for Kimano.

I showered in a bathroom easily as large as my bedroom. Unbelievably thick towels in deep blues and greens, a whirlpool tub that could host a hot tub party. Soft lighting, a sea glass tile floor, and cool, creamy walls, it was beautiful and tasteful—a little too tasteful for me. It had no fire, no life. Although with all the colors of the ocean, Kimano would’ve liked it.

Close now, little brother, I thought as I wrapped myself in a towel and opened the bathroom door. My lips curved. So close.

“Such an evil smile. I don’t believe I could do any better myself.”

Solomon was on the large bed—dressed at least—back against the headboard, fingers laced across his stomach, legs crossed casually at the ankles. His gray eyes were amused as I dripped in the doorway and his smile was anything but evil. It was appreciative and full of heat.

I had to be reluctantly appreciative as well—at his sheer blazing audacity. “I had no idea demons had a death wish. This is Eden House. Eden House. Full of psychics and empaths. They’ll be on their way right now.”

“You know that’s not true.” His smile widened to show a flash of teeth. “Although you could scream. I’ll try not to enjoy it too much.”

“I wouldn’t hold my breath.” And he was right. It wasn’t true. A demon as powerful as Solomon could block any psychic or empath. But he couldn’t block me if I cared to give a verbal shout of “Demon.” I didn’t. I kept my thoughts and emotions as carefully neutral as Solomon was keeping his. After all, this was what I wanted—him there when I found the Light.

I moved forward and sat on the foot of the bed. I was grateful he was wearing clothes, because I could all too easily feel the lack of mine. “Could you find a demon for me? A particular demon?”

“You? Asking me for a favor? I’m staggered.” The amused look faded to calculation. “I’m quite sure. I assume you know there would be a price for that. What are you offering?”

Now I was the one to smile. “I think you know that, Solomon. You’re not a stupid man . . . or demon.”

“Your soul or the Light.” He held out both hands, raising and lowering each like scales. “I know which I’d prefer, but unfortunately I answer to a higher . . . rather lower power. The Light it is.” He leaned forward toward me, one of those big hands resting above my knee, the fire of it burning through the thick cloth of the towel as if it weren’t there. “Tell me where it is and I’ll deliver up any demon you wish. A hundred if you have that much ammunition.”

“And you don’t even want to know why?” I asked as the hand slowly kneaded my leg until I felt that fire intensify and seep through every inch of flesh under his broad palm and caressing fingers.

“I don’t care. I care only about the Light.” He was right there—his breath mine. His mouth mine. And it wasn’t that of a monster . . . a demon. The breath was that of a man touched with the faintest smoky taste of whiskey. The lips were slowly lazy as the drip of honey and artful. Extremely, amazingly, unbelievably artful. This time not a man’s—unless that man had lived thousands of years with the sole purpose of learning to please a woman with a single kiss. It could make you forget where you were, who he was, who you were. If he could do all that with one kiss, I could see why some women might find souls overrated.

Some women.

When he pulled back, his eyes were gleaming with success . . . gleaming almost as brightly, in fact, as the blade I held against his throat. Then only my blade was gleaming. Solomon’s amusement, his seduction, it all disappeared behind a veil of tarnished gray. Anger. “Where is the Light?” he demanded darkly.

“I don’t know. I only know where the next stepping-stone is. Follow me, Solomon, while I follow the path. It’ll be just like The Wizard of Oz. We’ll follow the yellow brick road. I’ll be Dorothy.” I pressed the blade harder. “And you’ll be Toto after a visit to the vet’s office—snip snip . . . so don’t push me.”

“Trust me, Trixa. I’ll follow you,” he promised, reluctant respect surfacing behind the anger—that of a warrior for another warrior. “There’s no place on Earth you can go that I can’t find you.” Despite the metal at his throat, he kissed me again. It was the barest touch of skin against skin.

Then he was gone.

It was just me and my trusty letter opener that I’d borrowed from the desk in the corner and hidden under the mattress. Good enough for paper, but too dull by far for slicing a throat. What Solomon didn’t know wouldn’t get me eaten—at least eaten in the bad way. I fell back on the bed and felt the tingle that prickled with a quicksilver burn up and down every nerve ending.

Why was it always the bad boys?