The Grimrose Path

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

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

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

  “Veggie platter.” Zeke shrugged.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Zeke snorted. “That you were a pussy.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Well, wasn’t that just peachy?

  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.