Trick of the Light t-1
Page 3
“I don’t know what chick flick you stole that from, but you deserve your money back,” I said as I pulled back the hammer.
“Not a good time, then, I take it?” he asked with amused gravity.
The steel of the trigger was as cool against my finger as the sheets were against my skin. “An absolutely perfect time,” I disagreed with dark cheer. He was shirt-less, but at least he was wearing pants. If he hadn’t been, I think he knew I would’ve blown his head off right then and there.
“So stubborn. Pity.” The corner of his mouth quirked up and although he didn’t move, the weight of him seemed even heavier and far more intimate. Then he shimmered out of existence.
His chest had been as lightly furred as I thought it’d be, and broad. Did demons have some sort of hot-male-body catalogue to choose from? Snorting at myself, I replaced the gun after easing the hammer back down and turned over on my stomach. Solomon could put on any face or body he wanted—I’d never forget what was on the inside. I wouldn’t let myself. This time I went instantly to sleep. And I had dreams. . . .
Not the kind you’d think.
I dreamed of blue-green water, black sand, and blood.
So much blood.
More than anyone could hope to live without.
Chapter 2
Morning was slow. I liked it that way. I could run errands if I wanted or go back upstairs and sleep in late . . . if Leo didn’t bitch too much. Right now he was too busy with two tourists from the pasty East. How they’d wandered into this part of town, I hadn’t a clue. This was definitely off the tourists’ beaten track.
“I’ve never met an American Indian before,” the first chirped. She was a chirpy kind. Wavy red hair, freckles, round blue eyes, and skin whiter than snow. “What’s your Native American name?”
Leo’s dark eyes looked down the bar at me, literally pleading for help. I propped my chin in my hand, winked, and watched the show. Exhaling, he said with perfect seriousness, “Leo Thrusting Moose Phallus.”
That was a new one. I liked it. You wish, I mouthed, but held up nine fingers out of ten for scoring. In the past there had been Leo Constipated Elk, Leo Maker of Warm Yellow Water, Leo Mounter of Unwilling Dogs, and whatever idiots actually remained after one of those were treated courteously with the name of his tribe when they asked: the Tribe of None of Your Fucking Business.
These two weren’t that stupid. They were already headed for the door. Despite his hawk nose, lightly copper skin, and black hair that hung to his waist, all of which made Leo one fine-looking man, he’d tired a long time ago of the tourists’ American Indian fascination. Shaking his head in disgust, he tossed a towel over his shoulder and disappeared into the kitchen. A minute or two later Lenore came flapping about and posted on his roost anchored to the bar.
“I’ve never figured out how you get away with him when the health inspector ’s around.” Griffin, my usual late-breakfast crowd, moved up and sat on a stool in a blue shirt, some horrifically expensive brand naturally, and artfully faded jeans.
“Ah. Then watch this.” I looked at Lenore. “Health inspector, Lenore.”
Immediately the raven froze, dark eyes glassy, chest unmoving. Then he slowly pitched forward until he hung upside down from the perch, possibly the dead est stuffed bird ever seen.
Griffin gave a low whistle. “I’m impressed. He never did that when we worked here.”
“Yes, he did. Lenore’s special. He’s been around a long, long time.” And then some. Doing tricks was the very least of his repertoire. “He’s an old fart.”
I tapped him on his back and he sprang back up, pecking me on the hand in outrage, and cawing, “Nevermore, ass-wipe. Nevermore.”
“You just didn’t stick around long enough to see his little trick then,” I went on, stepping back out of beak range. “You and Zeke were still not precisely seeing eye to eye with the local authorities yourself. You’d be hiding in the back. And watch the language, Lenore.” If I could give it a shot, so could he.
I’d known what Griffin and Zeke were the minute I caught them loitering in my alley, ready to scour the Dumpster for food. They were homeless when I hired them, and just . . . lost—lost as you can get. I’d given them the job of keeping the storage rooms cleaned up and pretended I didn’t know they slept there—two kids with two changes of clothes and literally nothing else. We didn’t serve real food at Trixsta, but we served bar food—anything fried with cheese—and I let them eat free and take what was left over at the end of the night. And I’d run them over to the diner to fetch supper for Leo and me every night. Four meals instead of just two—Zeke simply ate his and didn’t wonder why I did this. Griffin wondered, wanted me to take it out of the money I paid them, but gave up when I scowled and threatened him with bathroom puke duty every night. After that he just worked harder and mooned after me like a puppy for a few months. It was cute and at least he didn’t piddle on the floor.
“You never asked back then.” He picked up a glossy black feather that had fallen to the bar. No more the teenager with a crush. He was a man now and a good one. I liked to think I had something to do with that. “What we were running from.”
“At first it wasn’t my business.” Or rather, they didn’t want it to be my business. I started scooping the ice into the bins. “And later I figured it out. Zeke.”
The blue eyes darkened. “The social workers told those goddamn foster parents to watch him. Told them to never leave him alone. I should’ve known better than to think they actually listened. I should’ve been there.” He shook away the guilt, at least the visible kind. “They never cared about us and they especially never cared about what Zeke needed.” He dropped the feather. It twisted once in the air before drifting down. “And don’t ask me what happened, all right? Don’t.”
“I won’t.” I’d just wait until the time came. I picked the feather back up and handed it to him. “Keep the feather. Raven feathers are good luck.”
“Like that?” He reached forward and lightly touched the teardrop around my neck. “Is that good luck?”
“No.” The roughness of Griffin’s combat-worn skin was an interesting sensation on my neck and his serious expression almost irresistible. Almost. Nothing had yet been able to let me forget they were anything but boys I’d all but raised for a few years, no matter what their ages now. Four or five years can be nothing, or it can be all the difference in the world.
Plus . . . well . . . I smiled to myself, then moved his hand away.
“Not luck,” I continued, giving the ice a break as Lenore sidled over to sit on my shoulder. “It’s a Pele’s tear from Hawaii. Lava that solidifies into the shape of a drop or tear, named for the Hawaiian goddess of fire and volcanoes.”
“So you’ve been to Hawaii?” he asked curiously.
“Once or twice. I wear it for my brother.” Lenore moved back to his roost and tucked his head under his wing. He picked up the emotion in my voice easily enough. So did Griffin.
“A brother,” he said slowly. What he meant was, “You had a brother,” had not have, but he didn’t want to come out and say that, did he?
I said it for him. “That’s right. I had a brother.” End of topic as I closed my lips tightly and went back to shoveling ice with a vengeance.
Griffin turned the feather in his fingers, looking for a painless way out. Painless for me. “So you’ve been to Hawaii, but you never lived there? You’re not part Hawaiian, Trixa?”
That did make me laugh. “Look at me, Griff. I’m part everything.” I untied the apron around my waist. “Watch the bar for me, would you? Just until Leo gets back.”
Good-naturedly, especially for a demon killer, he moved behind the bar. “You really are going to give that bird a complex calling him a girl’s name.”
I shrugged and smiled. “What else are you going to call a raven? Edgar Allan Poe? It’s a little long. But you can call him Lenny if it has your testosterone in an uproar.”
He snorted, “I’ve notic
ed Leo and Lenny are never around at the same time. What are they? Superman and Clark Kent?”
I shoved some money into my jeans pocket and figured my light sweater would do for a sunny November day; it was probably in the high sixties. “There was an incident. Bird crap, vacuum cleaner retaliation. It wasn’t a pretty sight. They tend to avoid each other now, which is probably for the best.” I gave him a quick wave and was gone. I had errands to do and it was a perfect blue-sky morning to do them. I took my car, blazing red as I liked most things in my life—red my favorite color and blazing my favorite philosophy—and drove slowly past the still-smoldering nightclub. I lowered the window to catch a whiff of smoke. A floating memory in the air. Talk about warming your heart.
I did the rest of my chores in a few hours and was back at the bar with four grocery bags of frozen mini-pizzas, potato skins, and fried cheese of varied colors. Lenore was gone, and Leo and Griffin were watching the small TV mounted over the bar. The rest of the bar was empty except for one guy dozing at a corner table.
“What’s up? Did they vote another demon into office?” I demanded, putting the bags down with a loud thunk that said, Thanks so much for the help. “Not that they do much worse than humans sometimes.”
“No, someone was eaten at the zoo,” Griffin said absently, still watching. “At least, the vast majority of him was eaten.”
I wasn’t a fan of the zoo. I didn’t like to see animals locked up, but I’d been on occasion. The TV was showing a security tape of a little girl, maybe four, sitting on a bench by herself. She had long, light brown hair, melancholy dark brown eyes that could break your heart, and was dressed in a yellow top, pants, and matching tennies, with a red balloon in her hand. Now, wasn’t that a coincidence. She liked red too, and she watched the balloon float in the air with those wide, wistful eyes. If her parents were around, they didn’t show up. The only immediate adult was a man with a leash and empty collar in his hands. He had a friendly smile, light jacket, and oh . . . how sad . . . you didn’t have to hear the words to know what he was saying. I’ve lost my puppy, sweetie. I’ll bet she’s so scared. Could you help me find her?
Never mind he couldn’t smuggle a puppy into a zoo and not be seen at some point. But a leash and empty collar fit right in your pocket.
The little girl looked around and static started to fuzz the video. She bit her thumb, smiled back shyly, and held out her hand. Then it was nothing but static.
“Wait until you see this.” Zeke had joined us at some point. He must have shown up after I left and he didn’t look too unhappy. In fact he looked pretty cheerful. Zeke’s sense of humor—such as he had—tended to tilt toward the dark end of the spectrum. “I saw it earlier. It’s good stuff.”
When the static cleared, the video had switched to another part of the zoo. You could hear screaming—throat-rending screaming—see running zoo personnel, and hear the howls of wolves looking for who had invaded their pen.
It seemed a man had been looking for his puppy and now a whole pack of puppies was looking for him. Apparently they found him too. When the zoo personnel were able to recover his remains, what few there were, he was identified as one Richard Charles Hubbins Jr.—a multiply convicted pedophile. No one was going to be shedding tears over him.
I tucked a wild strand of hair behind my ear and started unpacking the bags with a warm sense of satisfaction. “I have to say I love it when a pervert gets what’s coming to him. And the puppies got a nice treat too. It’s a win-win.”
There was one last security shot of the empty bench with the red balloon tied to the armrest. Bright and shiny in the sun, it swayed lightly as if waving at the camera. The police never found the girl or her parents but were asking that they step forward to give statements.
“What kind of statement do they need?” Zeke snorted. “He made a good chew toy?” Zeke wasn’t into clothes like his partner. Black on black was good enough for him, but today he was wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt. A completely no-name brand; the jeans probably came from the thrift store. Zeke didn’t care much about all the money Eden House paid. He didn’t care much about material things period. Just killing demons, drinking beer, and beating Griff at pool. Well . . . and guns. He did like guns.
“They’re probably curious to know who tossed the son of a bitch into the wolf pen.” Griffin’s eyes narrowed. “You weren’t just at the zoo, were you?”
Zeke, copper hair hanging loose to his shoulders, shrugged and reached for the bowl of pretzels. “No. I’d have just shot him. I wouldn’t have thought of anything that fun.” He looked up at the TV again, hoping for another repeat. “Anyone tape it?”
“Fun?” Griffin responded with disapproval, ignoring the tape remark. “Don’t you mean ironic? Poetic justice? His just deserts? Hoisted on his own petard?”
Shaking his head, his partner scooped up a handful of pretzels. “Nope, fun.”
Griffin gave in and took some pretzels himself. I could tell he wanted to ask how Zeke had gotten here . . . what with the entire no-driving thing occasionally slipping Zeke’s mind. If he needed to be somewhere, he could be five miles down the road before he remembered he didn’t have a license. Griffin definitely had his reasons for wanting to know. Bus accidents aside, purposely cutting Zeke off in traffic was grounds for punishment. And our boy? He did not do little punishments.
But Griffin didn’t ask how Zeke had arrived; he wouldn’t do that in front of Leo and me. As tight as the four of us were, Griffin and Zeke were two halves of a whole. Tight didn’t begin to describe their partnership.
But Zeke knew Griffin every bit as well as Griffin knew him. “Jackie dropped me off. We have a job up in Red Rock today. Demon. Maybe.” This meant demon or someone had turned loose their pet iguana.
Jackie meant Jackson “Stick up his Ass” Goodman, as Zeke labeled him. As much as I disapproved of labeling, it was a good one. Very accurate. The FDA would completely approve. Goodman was second in command of Eden House in Las Vegas. There was an Eden House in Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Dallas, Washington DC . . . fat lot of good it did us there . . . and a few other places I’d forgotten offhand. And that was just in the continental United States. Eden House was worldwide and had been around since, hell, nobody really knew, but long enough to have seen the pyramids built, Griffin had once said.
“Goodman brought you?”
Zeke snorted at Griffin’s surprise. Jackson Goodman as second at Eden House was far too important, in his own opinion, for ferrying around people. “Everyone else is out on a job. I offered to take a taxi, but . . .” He shrugged again.
I could see Goodman’s point of view, considering that the last time Zeke had taken a taxi, the driver had tried to overcharge Zeke, and Zeke had quite righteously, from his point of view, put him through the windshield, resulting in shattered safety glass, screaming people, a mildly confused Zeke who explained reasonably to the yelling, howling cab driver that stealing was a crime. In Zeke’s mind, assault with a windshield was apparently not, and only deserved retribution. As for the Jackie thing . . . Zeke, who mostly did as he was told as long as he was told in the line of duty or outside the line by someone he trusted, refused to call Jackson anything but Jackie. I was sure Jackie had made it clear a thousand times that it was Mr. Goodman or Goodman, not Jackson, not Jack, and definitely not Jackie. Zeke’s green eyes would blink and out would come Jackie, smooth as hundred-year-old scotch.
So, on the rare occasion when I saw the anal-retentive stiff waltz in here looking for the guys, which wasn’t often, I called him Jackie to give Zeke moral support. Not that he needed the latter, and the former were so out of the ordinary, extraordinary in fact, that most people wouldn’t understand them. Griffin would glare at my encouraged disrespect of management, Lenore would caw, “Nevermore, Jackie. Nevermore,” and a good time was had by all.
“Going hiking?” I tilted my head at Griffin to take in his expensive casual wear. “That’s not an activity that matches your look today.”
“These jeans? Hell, no,” Griffin refused instantly. “These aren’t hiking jeans. These cost two hundred damn dollars.”
“That’s sexy, Griff,” I said with mock sincerity. “A demon chaser in two-hundred-dollar jeans. Manly. Very manly.”
He glared a smoldering response, but since I was in the right with the jeans, he went with the other. “Demon catcher, not demon chaser.”
“Very nice. I like how your voice got deeper there. Muy macho,” I said, then asked Zeke, “How are you going to haul the kind of firepower you need without being spotted by a ranger? A shotgun stands out.”
Holy water, crosses, none of that worked on demons; it was all myth . . . maybe because the demons once were angels. Maybe they were already inoculated, so to speak, by their time in Heaven; maybe not. Who knew? They were resistant to the paraphernalia of all religions: Hinduism, Islam, Judaism . . . any of them. So leave your crucifix at home and don’t even get me started on The Exorcist. Diapers and a pea soup-free diet and that girl would’ve been fine. For a demon, however, you did need heavy firepower or an angel with a flaming sword, and as angels hadn’t been too enthusiastic about getting their hands dirty for quite some time now, heavy firepower it was.
Shotguns were the usual weapon of choice for the coup de grace, slugs the ammunition. Even demons needed their brains. Knives, smaller guns—smaller than a shotgun anyway—were good for slowing them down, but for taking them out, a shotgun was the best. Unless you were into axes or swords for whacking off the head. My boys used them all, but the shotgun was their favorite.
“Hand grenades,” Zeke said complacently. “They fit in the bag with the knives, guns, etcetera.”