Trick of the Light

  But back to business. “Whatever card Goodman flashed the caretaker, I don’t think is going to cover this without a lot of talking. And it’s almost bedtime.” I stepped over Goodman on the floor, saw the chilly bite of Trinity’s eyes, and kept walking. Griffin followed me, still shaking his head in awe as glass crunched under his shoes. “Just be thankful Zeke didn’t ask me to do it again,” I said as I gave him a light shove to the shoulder.

  I climbed back into the car, this time in the passenger seat, and Lenore hopped onto my shoulder. “Nevermore?” he cawed doubtfully.

  “No, Lenny. No nevermore. Now. The time is now.” I propped my knees against the dashboard.

  “Now,” he repeated, and squatted up against the warmth of my neck. He sounded as grimly contented as I felt. “Now.”

  We made it ten miles, Griffin driving this time, before Eli materialized in the backseat next to Zeke. If it had been daylight, we could’ve cruised through Death Valley, past the Artists Palette, a chunk of mountain striped in pastel greens, yellows, blues, and pinks, or seen the Devil’s Golf Course, a salt flat that had cracked and bubbled with escaping air until it looked like the surface of an alien moon. But it was night and instead of nature-made tourist attractions, we were given Eli. I definitely did not consider it a fair trade.

  I knew he was there before I turned my head. I smelled him. Not sulfur or death. No, I smelled freshly popped and buttered popcorn. I turned to see him toss a few dripping yellow kernels into his mouth. “Thanks for the invite. That was quite a show.” He grinned. “Heaven, Hell, and a fireworks extravaganza. What more could you want? I’ll bet you scared the ass feathers off those parrots from Upstairs.”

  Zeke had put his hand on his shotgun by his leg, but then I could see the memory in his pale green eyes of what had happened at the bar the last time he’d fired at Eli and Solomon. He could fire as often as he liked and he still wouldn’t hit the demon. Solomon and Eli were simply too quick for a human body’s actions and reactions—when they were prepared. There was no chance that Eli wasn’t prepared now. He, like Solomon, had already made that mistake once before with me and ended up with a pool cue through his abdomen. He wasn’t going to be unprepared again. Zeke knew it and only rested his hand on the gun instead of yanking it up to fire. Eli’s grin became mock solemn. “You can learn. Not fast, but you can learn. Good for you.” He extended the bag of popcorn toward Zeke. “Treat? Go on. A nummy-num for positive reinforcement?” Zeke ignored him, and you truly haven’t been ignored until you’ve been ignored by Zeke. As far as he was concerned, Eli had been plucked from the fabric of existence itself. The seat was empty and a demon called Eligos didn’t exist. Never had. Unless he made a hostile move.

  Eli offered the popcorn to me instead. Who knew where his hands had been, besides down his own pants? No thanks. I turned back and watched him in the rearview mirror. “Trixa, you were a star. You glowed like the most brilliant of supernovas.”

  “Mmmm?” I raised an eyebrow suspiciously. It seemed rather lame for Eli. Slick for a science geek maybe, but that wasn’t the kind of sexy Eli liked to put out. “You think?”

  “One of those amazing ones that wipe out entire peaceful civilizations. Billions of lives gone in one matter-destroying radioactive glare of cosmic poison. You were magnificent.” Happy as a serial killer with a full dungeon in his basement and a week off work to enjoy it, he slid down in the seat and continued with the popcorn and watching the stars above us. The convertible top was down and the sky was spectacular; I had to give him that.

  Or maybe he wasn’t watching the stars; maybe he was watching for something else. Someone else—someone bright and silver. I didn’t think exploding glass would scare off angels long. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so . . . damn . . . elated before,” he said, before continuing nos talgically. “Well, there was that time with one damn unlucky bastard; a red-hot poker; four horses aimed north, south, east, and west; and the crowd cheering me on. The Coliseum was always a great place to go on vacation. Reinvigorated you. Taught you the little things in life can still make it all worthwhile.”

  “As much as I’m loving the trip down memory lane,” I said glacially, “stop sending me body parts. I already hate your kind. You don’t want me hating you specifically, Eligos. Trust me on that.”

  “My full name.” He flashed his teeth at me, unabashed. “Makes me feel like I’ve been a bad boy. I need some punishment. Up for that?” When I didn’t respond, he crumpled the bag into a ball and sighed. “Ah well. And I really hoped that would work. I searched for someone who resembled your friend, and he’s a big guy—it took some time. Dulled my best carving knife, but the hell with Thanksgiving, I said, and this is what I get? Not only you don’t fall for it, but you don’t appreciate the effort I put into it. That’s just uncivil.” He leaned forward again. “How’d you know? He hasn’t come back. I have a few low-level flunkies watching the place. Did he call? I stole his cell phone the last time I was around him so you couldn’t call him, but there was always the chance he’d call you. I was playing the odds.”

  “And you crapped out big-time.” I wasn’t about to tell him how I knew.

  He drummed the back of Griffin’s seat with one hand and tossed the red and white paper bag out the window. He could’ve made it disappear, but littering was a little sinful, right? You took them where you could get them, I guessed. Even the tiny sins. “It doesn’t matter . . . although it was still a daring plan; you have to admit that.”

  “No, I don’t. And why doesn’t it matter?”

  This smile was gloating. This smile said he had me right where he wanted me. “I found your brother’s killer.”

  I’d known it. Felt it. The Light, Eden House, angels and demons, all of it converging together after all this time. It left only one thing—Kimano’s killer. There was a synchronicity to it, an inevitability. The moment I’d heard that demon I’d killed whisper of the Light with his last worthless breath, I knew it would bring Kimano’s murderer to me, because it was the only thing that everyone would want. Do anything to possess. Above and Below. Someone would be willing to pay the price.

  I turned again and smiled at him. You wouldn’t think a demon, especially one of Eli’s rank and caliber, would flinch at the simple curve of two human lips. And he didn’t . . . quite, but he shifted his shoulders and puffed up as all male creatures do to ward off predators. “He’ll be there, then? When I find the Light?” I asked.

  “He’ll be there. I’d swear to it, but we both know that would just be fun and games in futility.” He frowned, puzzled. It put a crease between his eyebrows I doubt he’d have been fond of had he been human and that crease permanent. But demons don’t need Botox, and Eli didn’t need any sign of weakness from me. “Don’t you want to know the name? Don’t you want to know, even if I won’t trade him until you give me the Light?”

  “No.” I turned back and studied the stars again. “Think of it as a surprise present, Eli. So much more fun to open those than the ones you already know.”

  Griffin snatched a glance off the road at me when I used the word “open.” I knew what he was thinking. If the demon was as high-level as Eli or Solomon, opening him might be more difficult than I made it sound. But he didn’t say anything and he didn’t ask me about the Light, whether I really would turn it over to Hell. I answered the last unasked question anyway. “I’m not as pure as you think I am, Griffin. Not as good. Not without a little sin myself. Maybe a lot, considering whom you’re asking.”

  “I never thought you were pure.” He reached for my hand and squeezed it. “But you’re our family. You can do no wrong.”

  I squeezed back and let all the feeling I had for him and Zeke show in my face . . . in my eyes. “My miracle, who went so good when your life could’ve turned you so bad.” One last grip to his hand and I added, “Angels aren’t on the state of Nevada’s endangered list, are they?”

  Griffin jerked his eyes back to the road just past the time he could’ve a
voided plowing into a creature of glass, holy light, and a pissy attitude. I was fairly sure he didn’t bother to brake, but the car stopped nonetheless. Whiteless silver eyes glowed as did the sweep of hair brighter than platinum. The glass wings and body were filled with a cool white light, and it still amazed me that something that should’ve been so beautiful—a crystal, metal, and glass work of art—could be so starkly forbidding when it wanted to be.

  Fingers of glass imbedded themselves in the hood of my car as the engine revved futilely. “Griffin, there’s barely anything left of her now. Give my baby a break,” I said lightly.

  If it had been Zeke, he would’ve ignored me and gunned it. Griffin, scowling, but obedient, listened. He slammed on the brakes until the car was stopped by good old human technology and not the angelic equivalent of the Terminator. “Where is the Light?” Oriphiel demanded in a voice less like trumpets and more like the sound of fire raining down.

  Eli once again proved himself useful for more than tracking murderers, stealing souls, and setting the standards for seducers and male models/gigolos everywhere. Overhead, missing us by inches, copper scales passed on a long serpentine body propelled by the wings of a dragon. Eligos settled on the hood of the car, between the archangel and us. His lizard head snaked forward and, despite the forked tongue, I understood every word. It wasn’t trumpets either. It was the last breath of a dying man twisted with the hiss of a boa guarding its prey.

  “The Light is not yours.” Eligos’s sibilant denial split the air. Jet-black claws punctured the hood precisely, blocking the angel’s fingers.

  “It will never be yours,” Oriphiel hissed back, sounding not far from a demon himself.

  Two sets of wings thrashed through the air, raptors—both of them. Harpy eagles they were, ready to fight to the death for the right of prey. “There is no bet this time. No job. This is an auction. The Light goes to the highest bidder, Oriphiel.” The snake tongue curled around the name with salacious glee. “What do you have to offer? What do you have to give but sanctimonious bullshit?”

  “Meet me at the bar tomorrow.” I stood and leaned over the windshield to address them both. “We’ll leave from there. Make sure Eden House has a helicopter ready to go. I know both sides will make sure I get a good night’s sleep. I don’t care how many of you winged bastards fly around my bar tonight, watching one another. If nothing else, you’ll balance each other out. As for you, Oriphiel, you’d better come up with what I want for the Light.” Eli had already come through there, or so he said, but better safe than sorry. “And what I want is my brother’s killer.” I sat back down. “Now, I’m tired and I’m going home. Eligos, you move the angel and you get first bid.”

  Eli already knew he had the only bid at the moment, but it didn’t stop him from leaping onto Oriphiel. They lurched through the air, a mass of scales, glass, and roars. They hit the sand beside the road and Griffin slammed his foot on the gas, leaving behind deep throated screams and the sounds of ripping flesh and shattering glass.

  “Do you really think we’ll survive this?” Griffin asked as the unsettling sounds faded to silence behind us. He didn’t look back at Zeke, but I knew what he was thinking. He could protect his partner from many things in this world, but what would go down tomorrow? It was hard for him to imagine any of us walking away. If the demons didn’t kill us, Eden House would be right behind them to take the next-best shot. That would be a best-case scenario. Worst case: We’d be caught in a cross fire of—well, to quote another great, older movie—biblical proportions. Bloodbath. Massacre. Whatever name you wanted to put on it, tomorrow was going to make the infamous Rasputin think he’d been in a playground scuffle.

  “You and Zeke don’t have to come. This isn’t your fight. This is about Kimano and his killer, about the Light and me. You two can walk away and start a life somewhere else, safe. I wouldn’t think any less of you. I’d rather you lived, if worse comes to worst for me tomorrow.” There was a lie in there, but I didn’t let Griffin feel it or Zeke read it. I kept my wall up and let them make their own decision. That they had to make it without all the facts wasn’t fair, but I couldn’t change that.

  “We’re going,” Zeke said with nothing more than mild anticipation in his voice. “Trinity won’t let us walk away.”

  “It’s true,” Griffin agreed. “No matter what happens, Trinity will want us dead. He considers us traitors and he’s old-school, to say the very least, when it comes to betrayal. However this is resolved, we may as well resolve it tomorrow rather than wait around.”

  “And family doesn’t desert family,” Zeke said solidly.

  I couldn’t have said it any more eloquently.

  Finally home, with Zeke and Griffin taking their turns sleeping downstairs on the couch. I didn’t peek, but I pictured them reluctantly spooned—I really needed to get a camera shot of that—before I went upstairs and turned on the light in my bedroom to see Solomon in my bed. He was bare chested, but wore pajama bottoms of dark gray silk. We’d come some distance from weeks ago when I’d been ready to shoot him for the same thing.

  “Wonderful,” I sighed as Lenny flew past me to roost on the headboard, his shiny, suspicious eyes fixed on the demon.

  “The power of Christ compels thee,” the raven croaked balefully. I wasn’t the only one who could quote old movies.

  “Amusing,” Solomon said dryly before dismissing the bird to take me in. “Long day at the office, I see.”

  “Less amusing.” I sifted through a dresser drawer for pajamas of my own. They happened to be silk as well. I didn’t know if that meant Solomon and I had similar tastes or he copied mine . . . seeking any advantage that he could. That was the mind of a demon or a manipulative man. I treated Solomon as if he were either—or both—and confronted him. “Eli says you were responsible for the fall of Eden House and you work for Beleth. That you want the Light for him. Any comments?”

  I changed in front of him, leaving my underwear on this time. It was no more revealing than a skimpy bathing suit and I made it a short show. He watched silently, but it didn’t distract him enough to catch him in a lie. I wasn’t stupid enough to think it would. I was just tired. Too tired to leave my bedroom to change. Too tired to care. Too tired to play his games. Tomorrow was the end. It should have invigorated me, that thought, but it didn’t. It exhausted me, as if all those years of searching and mourning had caught up with me in one crushing moment.

  “I do work for Beleth,” he admitted after I slipped the top on. “In Hell, everyone bows to someone else—all except the Morning Star. And he does want the Light. But I wouldn’t hurt you for it and I did not take out Eden House. Why would I?”

  “Because they are after the Light as well, with backup from the Heavenly Host with the Most—Oriphiel. Getting rid of the competition makes all the sense in the world.” I pulled the clip from my hair and let it spring free.

  “That holds true for Eli as well as me,” he pointed out, then exhaled. “I fell, Trixa, but we all make mistakes. Murderers serve life or die for their crimes. I was merely a rebel. I would repent, given the chance. Being made into a monster for all eternity, forced to make deals with greedy, stupid humans to be able to survive, how can that be just? I don’t kill. I don’t murder, and if I didn’t need the souls to survive, I’d never make another deal again or consume the souls who find Hell on their own wicked path.”

  “Would you give the Light to Beleth?” I folded my arms tightly, hugging myself, exhaustion chilling me.

  “I would give the Light to Heaven if they would take me back, but I know they would not,” he said. “So, yes, I would give it to Beleth. I wouldn’t have much choice.” He slid under the covers and held them back for me. “But I would never harm you for it. I would only take it if you gave it of your own free will.” His lips twisted at the last two words. “Odd, how the blessed and cursed of God share that one thing. Free will.” His eyes were regretful, colored with what he’d lost. I didn’t look any further. We all made our
choices. We all lived with them.

  I climbed into bed, turned on my side away from him, and pulled the covers over my shoulder. He moved up behind me and wrapped his arm around my waist. He was warmth all along my length and that warmth soothed my aches from a week filled with battles. I felt the nuzzle in my hair and the even warmer kiss on the nape of my neck as that hair was pushed aside. I closed my eyes at the sensation. It had been a while since I’d felt the touch of lips there. “I’ve watched you, played with you, wished for you for three years now. I’ve never hurt you. I don’t think I could, even if Lucifer himself ordered it. And I didn’t mean to hurt your friends. A game gone wrong.” He exhaled. “The only way you noticed me. Trixa, I want very much to be noticed by you.” He rested a large hand against my stomach. “Sleep,” he said softly. “Tomorrow it’ll be done. One way or the other. Then you can truly rest.”

  “Tomorrow when I tell you which demon I want for the Light?” I murmured, my fingers interlocking with his.

  “I said I can give you anything or anyone. I will. Now sleep.”

  I did sleep, with Lenore and Solomon watching. Circling outside the bar there were probably more angels and demons than Elvises in Vegas, but I didn’t care. Tonight was my last night as this Trixa: vengeance seeking, mourning, looking for a light . . . not the Light, but any light. Tomorrow I could be myself again. Kimano would rest. Mama would rest. I would rest.

  The world would be the world again. My life again, not the one I’d faked for so long. I would be free.

  I woke up with lips on mine, clever and so very practiced; yet they seemed meant only for me. I opened my eyes to see gray ones fade away along with Solomon himself. But the “Be mine” hung in the air. “When this is done, be mine.”