Trick of the Light

  I’d felt differently when Solomon had paid me that uninvited visit several nights ago, straddling me in bed. And I do mean felt it. But true or not, it was enough to tip Solomon over the line from temper to rage. I’d never seen him angry; I’d only seen the imitation of it. Solomon didn’t care that much about his club and our arson of it. He played as if he had emotions, because that’s all Solomon had ever done with me—play. With Eli he was serious—the kind of serious that would end with demon blood and entrails on my floor, neither of which could be put right with your average household cleanser.

  The fight wasn’t a surprise. The surprise was Solomon pulling a gun from under his jacket and nailing Eli with several shots midchest. The two that should’ve hit him in the head missed and for one reason only, because Eli could move that fast. It was a flicker of brown so quick that my eye only caught an afterimage of it. Caught it from the floor, by the way, where I was crouching below the bullet path. I was good, but I wasn’t a fool.

  “Please. You’re kidding, right?” Eli brushed at the front of his shirt that had turned black with demonic blood. “A gun? Oh, I get it. You don’t want the girlfriend to see you for what you really are, warts and all. Or should I say scales and all?” He didn’t move from the stool. Instead he grinned, gloating and smug. “I have news for you, Solomon. She likes that. There’s a whole level to her you didn’t even suspect.” He looked back at me as I waited ready on one knee with my own gun drawn. “What do you say, Trixa? Want to see the real thing fighting over you? You want to see scales and fangs and everything we truly are as we rip each other to shreds?”

  First, it wasn’t me they were fighting over. It was the Light. If I forgot that, I’d be another puddle on the floor that Leo would have to Clorox the hell out of. Second, it appeared my system of hell-spawn checks and balances might go all the way to balancing each other out altogether. That wouldn’t do me any good when it came to Kimano’s killer.

  Third, Zeke wasn’t going to let any fight go down that he wasn’t part of. He came down the stairs in a rush, followed by Griffin. Both had shotguns, but only Griffin was polite enough to tell me to duck right before they fired. Both went for head shots, the surest way to put a demon down; both missed. And that, that was unheard of. If nothing else, it showed that all the demons we’d killed in Vegas, except for the black ones that had taken Zeke down, were nowhere near as powerful and inconceivably quick as the two that were in my bar now.

  Eli swiveled on the stool to take in the two partners. The slugs that should’ve blown through his skull had instead blown through one of the wooden posts that went from counter to ceiling. “Pets, Trixa?” he drawled. “You should have them neutered. Makes them less likely to piss on your rug.”

  I ignored him, ignored Zeke and Griffin who were reloading, and looked at Solomon. “What happened to the two guys in the car out front? The two who were watching me.” Why hadn’t they come running at the shots as Zeke and Griffin had?

  The silver darkened back to gray and his eyes focused on Eli. “I imagine he killed them. That’s what he does, Trixa. I take the willing souls. He takes it all.”

  Eli shrugged. “Right, as if you don’t. But if those two angel ass-wipers are dead out there, Solomon did it. He likes easy targets, the fish-in-the-barrel types. Lazy, lazy. I prefer a challenge.”

  “Liar.” Solomon had let his gun fall to the floor. That he had even tried the weapon meant he hadn’t known Eli was equally as good as he was. He’d suspected maybe, but he hadn’t known. From the animosity between them, it couldn’t be their first battle, but it could be their first one in human form. Solomon could’ve thought he’d have the advantage there for some reason, or that he’d simply surprise Eli with something as outrageous as an actual human weapon. If that were the case, he’d been wrong.

  “Of course I’m a liar. I’m a demon, just like you, Solomon. Or have you played human so long, you’ve forgotten what you really are? Pathetic.” He turned his gaze on me as I slowly stood from my crouched position. “If those men out there were sliced and diced by yours truly, I wouldn’t deny it. I’d brag on it. I might lie about most things, like all good demons, but I never lie about my body count or the notches on my bedpost. Some things are sacred. Right, darlin’?”

  “I don’t notch my bedpost.” I put my gun away. It wouldn’t have done me any good anyway. “I cut off their tackle and hang it from my rearview mirror.”

  “Damn, you must taste great,” Eli said with admiration. The trouble with that admiration was I didn’t know if he thought I would taste great sexually or in a culinary sense. Probably both.

  “Go. Get out. The both of you. I’m tired and going to bed. Alone.” I stood up. “And one of you take the bodies and the car with you. I’ve had my fill of cops around here.”

  “Bossy, bossy, bossy,” Eli sighed as he slid off the stool. “Rather fun being on the receiving end of it for once.” He passed a hand over his shirt and it was pristine again. “I’ll take the car. Like I said, the Chinese doesn’t stay with you. Not when you have an appetite like mine.” If anyone was going to have the last sexual innuendo, it was going to be Eli. He waved a hand and went to the door and through it, passing so close to Solomon that their shoulders brushed. Solomon briefly bared his teeth in a snarl; then his eyes met mine intently for several seconds before he silently disappeared.

  “I should’ve opened a women’s shoe store. Demonic visitors don’t just drop into a women’s shoe store.” I went and locked up.

  Zeke was studying his shotgun with a furrowed brow and an annoyed lift of his upper lip. It was his equivalent of a man finding his wife in bed with the mailman and the local Jehovah’s Witness before falling to the floor, shouting, “Betrayed!” to the skies. Griffin took in the expression and elbowed him. “Don’t be so melodramatic.” He looked at me. “We’ve never been up against anything like them before. I’ve never seen demons move like that.”

  “No.” I turned out all the lights but one. “So no going after them alone.”

  “The demon was right. You are bossy.” Zeke transferred the disgruntled look from his weapon to me.

  “I’ve babysat your scrawny asses for ten years. I’ve a right to be bossy,” I retorted, shooing them toward the back office and the couch. “Now, go cuddle.”

  “Four years,” Griffin muttered as he moved into the back and out of sight, but I heard the last words. “You’re only four years older, Trixa. It hardly merits a salute.”

  “Cuddle?” Zeke looked after him, then back at me, a mildly panicked expression replacing the aggravation. “We have to cuddle? I’m pretty sure I don’t want to cuddle.”

  I patted his cheek as I passed him on the stairs. “You never know until you try.” I made sure I locked my bedroom door behind me in case a pissed-off and forcibly cuddled Griffin stormed up. It didn’t happen. It made me wonder who slept on the floor or who was the big spoon and who was the little spoon. When I woke up the next morning, it was to see Zeke standing at my bureau holding my picture of Kimano.

  “When did you get so good at picking locks?” I would’ve woken up had any stranger tried to enter the room. But I could sense Griffin and Zeke. The psychic and empath thing. The raising them for a few years thing. A hundred other things. Take your pick, but I knew when they were around, the same as I knew when Leo was around, and the building still felt empty. He hadn’t come back yet.

  “Since you taught me.” He continued to study the picture.

  “You talk like I’m not always on the side of the good and noble law. Like I’m an actual criminal. Shame on you. I fed you fried cheese to your heart’s content when you were a boy.” I pushed my hair back and climbed out of bed. Still in silk, but a knee-length nighty this time. I did love silk beyond all things. I walked over and took the picture frame and folded it against my chest. I had a world of deceits in me, too many to count. My wandering and slightly unlawful ways called for them, but that protective movement I couldn’t have stopped if I’d tried
.

  “You don’t look alike,” he commented.

  It was perceptive of him. The hair, except for my streaks and his being straight to my curly, and the skin color, were both on the money from what you could tell from a black-and-white picture, but, no, we shared none of the same features. “Our family’s that way. No peas in a pod among us.”

  He then picked up one of my knives that had been lying close to the picture, opened a drawer, and began to polish it with a pair of my underwear. And from the tilt of his head he knew exactly what he was doing and the degree to which he was annoying me. “Leo told us a long time ago a demon killed your brother. He told us you didn’t like to talk about it.”

  “Leo should’ve kept his mouth shut and what exactly do you think you’re doing now?” I said grimly as I snatched the panties away from him with my other hand. Revenge for the cuddle remark, had to be. He normally wasn’t suicidal. Homicidal, yes, but not suicidal. At least not since he was fifteen, the scar on his neck reminded me.

  “Talking about it.” He flipped the blade and caught it. “Griffin says you’re too stubborn to realize how dangerous those two demons are. He says you’re so focused on revenge—on your mission—that you’re blind. He says you’re acting like me.” He looked down. “Nice legs.” He bent over slightly to get a better look.

  I kicked him hard in the shin with the heel of my bare foot. It probably stung me more than him, but it was worth it. I grabbed the knife he was still tossing as it was midair in another flip. Holding it by the point, I tossed it at my headboard, nailing a cheetah in the eye. The panties swung cheerfully from the blade. I’d keep it there as a reminder. These things were temporary. Once the killer was dead, I was gone, and if it felt like I was leaving two other brothers behind . . . I’d get over it. Because for all his irritating ways, let me count the thousands, I did love Zeke. And I loved Griffin. It was something I never counted on. Leo would leave too. He was staying only because of me and my mission, as Zeke called it. What would happen to them then? They were men, all grown-up, but there was Eden House and then there was the truth. . . .

  I sighed and pulled him down by his shirt until I could rest my forehead against his. “Who better to tell me if I get too Zeke-like, then, right? But trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

  “You are too Zeke-like,” he countered immediately, resting a tentative hand on my back. “But I trust you.”

  “Honestly?” I smiled. Absolute, full trust from Zeke . . . that was huge.

  “Right behind Griffin.” He paused a beat before adding, “He tells me I should.”

  I groaned and reached around to swat his butt. “Ass,” I repeated fondly before turning him and pushing him toward the door. “I’m going out to shop for the bar. Plus, I have no desire to see your boss today. If he shows up asking where we go next, tell him I still don’t know. I still haven’t sorted it out yet. That guy was so high I’m having trouble telling where his hallucinations begin and the Light ends. As for the two missing guys out front . . .” I shook my head. “Tell them the truth, but just say it was Solomon. They already know about him and how he likes to hang around here and harass me.”

  “Demonic dick,” he grunted. “But he’s good. Too good. You really are being too much like me. Can’t you stop it?”

  I didn’t answer, only shoved him out the door and closed it behind him. But the truth was I couldn’t stop it, any more than he could have. Griffin’s training, it wouldn’t work on me, and Leo knew better than to try talking me out of it. I had my mission.

  Because I didn’t have my brother.

  Chapter 11

  Las Vegas Springs Preserve was my favorite park in the city and a good place to think. Close to Meadows Mall, it lacked the stark beauty of Red Rock Canyon outside Vegas or the wild burros that roamed free. On the upside it had cottonwood trees and winding paths, and your chances of seeing a tarantula were a little less. Not that I had anything against spiders. They were just out to make a living too and make the occasional connection with another creature . . . whether it was to screw it or suck it dry. It wasn’t the pretti est way of putting it, but the most honest. We all had to eat. I suppose we all didn’t have to have sex. Nuns managed, after all, but they had more self-control than spiders and probably more than I did too. Although it had been quite a while since I’d dated anyone casually or seriously, even if Solomon was doing his best to make that choice difficult.

  But I had too much to do for casual dating . . . with a nice, normal nondemon . . . even if most of what I’d been doing was waiting. Once I’d found out about the Light, it was just a matter of waiting for it to show up. I’d searched for years, but the Light had turned out to be good at hiding—which only made it more mysterious. I knew what it did, but where it came from originally, I’d never been able to find out. Was it a living creature or more some sort of sentient artifact? I didn’t know. Even with part of it living in my head, I still didn’t know. Alien maybe? Technology from before the dawn of time? A night-light from Atlantis?

  I sat on a bench in the garden by the Desert Living Center and gave an inner snort at that. As if demons and angels weren’t enough, let’s go straight to the tabloid trash route. I also didn’t know why the Light had chosen now to pop up, or if it really had been just a fluke that a caver had tripped across it. It didn’t matter which though, because it was helping me find the other thing I hadn’t been able to locate on my own no matter how long I’d looked: Kimano’s killer. I knew the Light would help me do what I couldn’t manage alone, and I’d been willing to wait as long as it took.

  And that was now. I’d waited until now. I felt the fierce satisfaction. It warmed me more than the winter sun, but it would never warm me as much as my brother ’s presence would have. Revenge had kept me moving when I’d wanted to lie down on the bloody sand beside Kimano and die with him; revenge had kept me sane when it would’ve been so much easier to drop off a cliff into a mental chaos that would swallow me for all my life. Revenge was good for those things, but it wasn’t his warm laughter, his rose-colored-glasses view of the world, his incredibly warped sense of humor, and it wasn’t anywhere close to replacing how he’d loved me best.

  You should love your family all the same, but of course you don’t. Just as Mama had loved her black sheep, squeaky-wheel boy best, Kimano and I had loved each other best. I would give up anything, give up the rest of my life to have him sit beside me on that bench for just five minutes. To hold my hand, to tell me his last silly prank, laugh at himself about how it had all gone wrong and he’d been the one to end up with egg on his face. To call me sister and say he loved me anyway, despite my workaholic ways.

  He’d actually thought I was a workaholic. He was laziness incarnate, my baby brother, and gone so long. . . .

  No more. Time to concentrate. That’s why I was here. The open sky, nature, peace—it would help me go where I needed to be. I closed my eyes and let Vegas disappear. I let the Light come into my consciousness, the tiny speck of the stuff—buzzing around my brain like a meadow bee sleepy with sun and pollen. Where did the trail point to next? Where had that musician passed off the gatepost to something more amazing that he could’ve ever understood, no matter how many drugged-up dimensions he passed through? The buzzing was slightly annoyed. I thought the shark had probably been easier for the Light to work with than that guy had been.

  The buzzing went on and on, spinning in circles, trying to find in my brain what it needed to show me . . . to draw a mental picture for me. To lead . . .

  And there it was. Sort of. Now I knew why there was a “Just say no to drugs” slogan. This was going to be more work than the others. It was going to require research. I really needed to look into getting an intern. Being caught in a battle between angels and demons had to be worth at least three college credits.

  As I stood, I took in a last breath of spring-scented air, listened to the birdsong, and then saw a member of wildlife the conservationists hadn’t planned on reviving in this p
lace.

  A perv in a white shirt and polyester pants. A standard hide-in-the-bushes-and-whack-it perv. Fat and balding, it was as appealing as watching a giant marshmallow go at it. That would put any teen who saw it off sex a thousand times more efficiently than any school’s abstinence campaign. And from the school buses in the parking lot I’d seen on the way in, he was waiting for a happy-go-lucky line of kiddies to come skipping by to see what he was selling. I sighed. I didn’t have the time to do anything truly interesting about it. Too bad. I had to settle for walking over and pointing the muzzle of my gun at his chest. It kept my eyes away from far most nauseating sights as I said, “You’ve ruined my sex life for the foreseeable future. Now take that thing that’s catastrophically failing at masquerading as a penis and go away.”

  He did. Smart marshmallow. Then I went shopping for supplies as I’d told Zeke and followed it up with a trip to the library.

  I didn’t get home by dark. I was still at the library when my cell phone rang. It was on vibrate to escape the wrath of the library police. Flipping it open, I didn’t get a chance to say hello before Griffin’s urgent voice was telling me Eden House was under attack and he and Zeke were on their way. I told him I’d meet them there, jammed the book I’d been looking through into my bag, and ran for my car. I ignored the ringing alarm as the library doors slammed shut behind me. Some things didn’t allow time for proper procedure, such as checking out books. Eden House’s coming under attack was one of them. The only other time I’d heard of that happening to one of their chapters had been the House in NYC. The demons had brought down a five-story building. To this day, there was no Eden House in New York. For that matter, there were no demons there any longer either. Certain creatures didn’t like that sort of attention brought to their city, as my fellow info source, Robin, had pointed out while wallowing in epic party memories. Demons weren’t the only thing to fear in the dark, and a good majority of those night dwellers lived in New York. Enough to make it uncomfortable enough for demons that they chose to hunt and seduce in easier locations.