by Rob Thurman
“Oh. Sorry.” He pulled the curtain around the tub, then stuck his head back out, hair soaking. “I am supposed to be sorry, right?” He took my glare as a yes and jerked his head back in.
“If I’d help them,” I snorted, “why in the world wouldn’t I help you? Besides, I’ve already needed a healer once. I might need one again someday and you’ll owe me.”
“Maybe you’ll owe me for healing the naked guy,” she shot back, and folded her arms defiantly.
“I like you.” I smiled widely. “Damned if I don’t. And you know what? Maybe I will.”
In a few hours I had her cleaned up with a suitcase of new clothes, a bus ticket to Louisiana, and a bright red collar for Koko along with a brand-spanking-new carrier. It had cushions and toys. All the bells and whistles. I could’ve lived in that thing. I also gave her three hundred dollars and a knife. “Put the money in your shoe,” I ordered. “And the knife . . .” I held it up to the sun. It was transparent and gleamed bright enough to make you shield your eyes. “It’s glass, so it won’t set off any metal detectors. Use it if you have to and run like hell if you do. Cops are an aggravation you don’t need.”
She slipped it into the waistband of her jeans and pulled her shirt over it before zipping up the bottom half of her jacket. The authorities might search her bag, but they wouldn’t search her. Not a thirteen-year-old, who looked more like eleven and who, I was betting, could cry crocodile tears of fake fear at the drop of a hat. “The world’s not a very nice place, is it?”
I considered that for a moment. It was something I hadn’t had the luxury to really think about in a while . . . not with Kimano and the Light. “I think that it’s not nice but it’s not that bad either. It’s like a peach. There are some bad spots, a few just mushy ones, and then some really great juicy bites.”
Blue eyes ringed with a thick line of deep, dark purple liner—kids—took that in and she sighed. “That was so lame.”
I tugged at the red streak I’d dyed at the front of her light brown hair a few hours before. I’d called ahead, but I told her this way they’d know she was from me for sure. Red was my signature. I tended to leave it wherever I went. I said, “When you’ve got a better one, come back and tell me.”
Her bus was due at the terminal soon and I left her at the curb with a backpack of clothes, my number curled in one hand, and the handle of Koko’s carrier in the other. I could’ve parked and gone and waited for the bus with her, but in this life she was going to have to be strong. Now was the time to start. Because she was right . . . the peach thing was lame. The world was a whirlwind of life and excitement and danger and death, a kite soaring high or plummeting to a crumpled wreck on the ground. You had to be prepared . . . from day one. This was her day one.
I watched her walk away and then started what was left of my crumpled little car, with its cracked windshield and sand scars along the side. I patted the buttery leather steering wheel under my hand. “You were a good girl. The best.”
“Odd. It doesn’t get around downstairs that you know much about being good.”
The voice was as buttery and smooth as the leather. I turned to see a new demon sitting in the passenger seat beside me. Definitely a demon, and definitely also fresh from Hell. The shimmer of heat that hung around him was slow to dissipate. “Eligos.” He dipped his head slightly in a bow. “You can call me Eli. And the less you know about good, the better in my book. I like wicked women.” Where Solomon was the smoldering, mysterious section of the catalogue, Eli had gone with the charismatic naughty boy. The grin he flashed was so bright and happily predatory that women walking on the sidewalk actually stopped and looked around as if they could feel the warmth of it.
He had brown hair, halfway between tousled and spiky and streaked with dark blond, hazel eyes, a strong chin, and a dimple beside a mouth that was simply too perfect to exist in nature. He had a thin upper lip and a full lower lip. I was as much a sucker for that look as for the Latin lips Solomon sported. Both were sexy as . . . well . . . Hell, obviously. Eli’s clothes were casual but expensive and he had a brown leather jacket that made him look ready to hop on a motorcycle or in the cockpit of a plane at a moment’s notice . . . with a very heavy emphasis on cock. Like all demons, looking far too good to be true was part of his business.
“So, Trixa, what’s it going to take to get you to Light up my life?”
“I’ve gone through all this Light thing with Solomon. Don’t you guys have meetings down there? Send e-mails? Doesn’t the left hand of evil know what the even more left hand is doing?” I started the car and pulled away from the curb.
“Ohhh, you think we’re all friends down there. That’s sweet.” He leaned back and whistled a few notes of “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” “That is so cute. No, sweetheart, we hate one another, almost as much as they hate us upstairs. We’re competitive, we loathe all other demons, and in our scaly little hearts we’d all like to be the one to bring the Morning Star down and take his place.” The grin, if anything, got wider and more playful. “Evil, remember? There’s a bookstore two blocks up if you need a dictionary.” He pulled sunglasses out of his pocket and slid them on. “How about we grab some Chinese and talk? I’m starving. Souls are like Chinese, you know. Eat one and you’re hungry for more two hours later.”
I should’ve shot him. I had my Smith tucked in my back waistband holster. But he was right. I’d assumed Hell was united in this. If they weren’t, at least this one might keep the others off my back. And truthfully enough . . . I was hungry. It crossed my mind that I was getting a little too comfortable in the company of demons. It also crossed my mind they were getting a little too comfortable in the company of me, which meant they underestimated me.
That was a mistake I could live with.
I cultivated that warm vengeful glow in the pit of my stomach. It kept me on target and blunted the undeniable edge of Eligos’s charisma. It didn’t take long to find the nearest Chinese restaurant with edible cuisine. I’d been there once before and it was an excellent one. That was important. All I needed was a demon mutilating the chef because the dim sum wasn’t up to his standards. We were shown to a booth by a gorgeous Asian woman who tripped twice, unable to take her eyes from Eligos—there was no conceivable way I was going to call him Eli.
“Tell me, Eli”—damn it—“what’s your story, then?” I asked as he stretched his arms along the back of the booth. “Solomon says he can pay my price if I find the Light. Can you?”
The hazel eyes were suddenly empty of that uncanny magnetism, empty of the seemingly ever-present humor and sexuality, empty of any emotion at all. They may as well have been the eyes of a dead man or the empty shine of skillfully painted glass. “I can give you anything Solomon can. Anything and more.”
“Promises. Promises.” I drank the lemon-flavored water.
“I know you’re not too fond of him making Vegas his home. Give me the Light and I’ll give you whatever you want, plus remove Solomon from your backyard . . . permanently.” He ordered without looking at the menu. I took my time, to get to him—letting a demon push you was the first step down a slippery slope with a bottom you did not want to see or experience.
Finally, I made my selection, then leaned back in casual imitation of his pose. “Solomon’s a pretty powerful demon, from what I’ve seen. Are you saying you play in his league?”
His eyes filled up again, like an empty glass, but it wasn’t with the wild and exciting emotions of before. It was as he said . . . evil, remember? Dark and savage and utterly confident. “Let’s just say he only wishes he could play in mine.”
I didn’t know if Solomon would agree with that, but Eligos exuded enough self-assurance that although I knew a demon couldn’t open his mouth without telling a lie, I almost believed it myself. “Let me see you,” I said abruptly. “The real you.”
The eyebrows rose. “Aren’t we the kinky one? I really am going to like you.” There was a flicker, so fast no one else in the restaurant
saw it. There were copper scales, eyes like copper-flecked tar. . . . They sucked down the dinosaurs; they’d sucked down souls as well, claws the same dense black, a forked and mottled tongue seen through the waver of clouded glass teeth. The wings of a pterodactyl. Demons weren’t pretty, but they weren’t ugly either. Like a mixture of Komodo dragon body combined with a raptor that brought death from the skies and the calculating, cold, endlessly patient eyes of a python. Nature: deadly, terrifying, but not ugly.
The flash passed and he was Eli again, white teeth replacing glass daggers. “Which is sexier? Ever want to take a walk on that wild side, babe? Because I can accommodate you there.”
“Thanks, but I don’t think they make birth control for what you’re packing.” Although I knew demons, as well as angels, were asexual, they could choose any sexual human form—at least the demons could female-wise. I still didn’t know if angels couldn’t put on a female costume or were just gender biased. But I did know both angels and demons were sterile, contradicting both the Bible and Hollywood. It didn’t matter. I still liked to put it to them once in a while.
“Rosemary’s Baby.” He snorted. “The Omen. Two movies and we never live it down.” He adjusted the blinds and blocked the sun. It seemed more appropriate to talk about these things in the dark. “What do you want, Trixa? For the Light, what do you want?”
I pulled out the scale. I kept it with me always, tucked away in a tiny gold locket on my bracelet. “This came from the one who killed my brother. I want him.”
I laid the scale on the table between us and he touched it with one careful finger, soaking in its essence . . . its signature. He raised an eyebrow. “You want him dead?”
Something curled my lips, but it was the farthest thing from a smile there was. “I want him. Don’t worry about killing him. That pleasure is all mine.”
“Hmm.” He leaned back and I returned the pewter scale to its place. “There are many demons that color. Hundreds, maybe even a thousand.”
“Does that mean you can’t do it?” I challenged.
“Sweetheart, there is nothing I can’t do.” He shared that smile with the waitress who’d arrived with our food. “I excel at all things. I achieve all things. In other words, I’m one amazing son of a bitch . . . so to speak. Not literally of course.” The smile sharpened as the waitress backed away, legs trembling and eyes both fascinated and fearful. Trapped. And if he wanted her, she would be trapped. She didn’t have it in her to step away if he had but crooked a finger.
“Besides, I have his essence now. His scent. I’ll find him. I’ll deliver him, and I’ll destroy Solomon if you want, just as the cherry on top.” He dug into the food, took a few bites, then made a seesaw motion of his hand. It looked like I hadn’t picked the restaurant well enough after all. “Good, but could be better. I think I’ll make a deal with the cook on my way out. You keep looking for the Light; I’ll scour the earth to locate your brother ’s fiendish killer.” He put his hand on his chest and gave me his perfect profile. “Do I look noble when I say things like that? I feel noble. Straight out of a John Wayne Western or Errol Flynn flick. Before your time though. Pity.” He called the waitress over and drawled, “Sweetheart, we’re not going to pay for this. Is that all right with you?”
She swallowed, eyes glassy with a good girl’s version of lust, and nodded. “I will pay myself, sir.”
“Thanks. You’re a doll.” He gave her the grin, the up-and-down look, until I thought her skin would actually burst into flame, and then he shooed her off. “I’ll check in later,” he said to me, suddenly all business. “Tracking killers. Damning souls. I might have to forgo running over puppies. This is going to be an entertaining day.”
“I was wondering,” I asked before he got up, sincerely hoping he was kidding about the puppies. “How many years do people get to enjoy what you demons give them for their souls?”
“Interesting question.” He rested his chin in his hand and the smile returned. . . . It was more blinding than the sunlight the blinds had blocked. “Most demons give you five years, some fifteen, some twenty. Arbitrary, really, depending on whom you’re dealing with and how hungry they are. Now me, I give my clients the entire span of their natural lives.”
Clients. He was something, this one. “Really?” I said skeptically. “Because you’re so generous?”
“No, darlin’.” The hazel eyes hosted swirls of black. “I do it because that gives them hope. They think, if I live my life and do good things, share my wealth and good fortune, give to the church, God will forgive me . . . take me in when I go. And eventually they even forget for months, sometimes years at a time. What an imagination I had when I was younger. How stupid of me to think something so crazy.” The smile had gone from sun to jagged, smoky crystal. “And then, when they’re ninety, and it’s all just a memory, I show up and drag them down. Sometimes I eat them right away and sometimes I let them suffer years and years in the fire, but the look on their face when I first show up . . .” Scales rippled across the back of his hands; then he was all human again, sexy, happy smile back in place. “It’s so much damn fun, it should be illegal.”
“Instead of immoral?” I said, quelling a ripple of disgust.
“You say tomato, I say tomahto.” He clapped his hands together once. “And I’ll have the best Chinese food in the world right here anytime I want. See you later.” He got up and headed straight for the kitchen. I didn’t try to stop him as I would’ve if he’d been on his way to simply kill the cook. I could save the man’s life, but I couldn’t make his decisions for him.
Free will. God giveth and the devil laughs all the way to the bank.
Chapter 9
I broke the news about the new demon to Leo that night when we were readying the bar for the night owls—they tended to be messier than the daytime crowd. His eyes narrowed as though it was somehow my fault, but he only grunted, “Harems went out of style a while ago.”
I started emptying the dishwasher and hanging glasses above the bar. “Please,” I said scornfully, “I’m hardly some leather-wearing monster killer with a cadre of hot men and demons waiting on my every sexual whim.” I paused, a glass held in midair. Leo started to speak and I held up a finger on my free hand. “Wait a minute. I’m still contemplating why I’m not that and wondering how to change it.”
He snapped a bar towel against my ass. “Spare me. Your tawdry fantasies are not something I want to think about.”
“Tawdry?” I hung the glass and admitted it. “Okay, tawdry, but I’ll make you head harem boy. First in my heart and loins.”
“Harem man,” he corrected, “and no thanks. I don’t look good in pantaloons.”
“Oh, the harem goes naked at all times . . . unless buttless chaps are involved.” I gave him a wink and finished with the glasses. “All the better to serve my depraved needs.”
“You’re depraved, all right; I’m just not sure it’s sexually,” he grunted as the door opened to admit the first alcoholic of the evening. “And you’re wearing leather right now.”
I looked down at the rich color of the brown pants I was wearing. “It’s faux. That doesn’t count. They don’t let you in the club of Monster Layers of America unless you wear the real cow. It’s in the bylaws. You also have to like male-on-male porn. That’s even above owning your own whip.” I poured a whiskey for the customer. “Too bad I only qualify for one out of three.”
Leo held his hand up. “Don’t tell me. Please. I’ll beg if you really push it, but please don’t tell me. There’s a reason straight men call it a devil’s threesome and it has nothing to do with demons.”
It was teasing between us. Long honed from an even longer history. The temptation was always there, but Leo and I both knew it couldn’t last, and the fact that we might outdo nuclear explosions before we separated still wouldn’t be worth losing what we had now. We might not be together sexually, but we were together in so many other ways—in all other ways. We were friends and family and lately w
arriors shoulder to shoulder. That was much better than a harem.
As for the Monster Layers of America . . .
Besides, stare into the abyss and it stares back into you. Follow that to its natural conclusion when it came to sleeping with demons. And that’s what Solomon and Eli were, no matter their charm and appeal. One of their kind had killed Kimano . . . as so many of them killed others, over and over. Solomon seemed to think the fact that he limited himself to just taking souls made him a saint. To hear him talk, it was no worse than a person eating a hot dog. At least Solomon’s meal had agreed to it—the pig hadn’t. And I was far from being a vegetarian; I’d yet to come up with a good answer to that one. That people were better and more deserving of life than animals wasn’t it. I’d never met a dog I didn’t like. I’d met plenty of people I couldn’t say the same about.
Solomon said he didn’t kill, but . . . demons lie. All demons.
Didn’t they?
Now Eli . . . Eli definitely lied and he definitely killed. That I knew as surely as anything. Souls would never be enough for him. He was a demon—as much as he looked like a man—who would crave variety, infinite and in any fashion he could get it. Eli existed for every experience he could get, because for him life was the opposite of short. Instead, life was endless. How to fill the millions of hours . . . days . . . years.
Why, sweetheart—I could see that disarming grin—anyway I can.
The night was unusually quiet despite our preparation. No demonic hordes. No wounded friends in pain. No wispy little girls and fat, waddling dogs. It was just half the number of the usual drinkers, sports fans glued to the TV, and the occasional hooker. Not legal inside the city limits, but if they could put up with what they did for the few bucks they needed to survive, I wasn’t going to kick them out. “Nice night,” Leo observed.
And it stayed that way until I was escorting a wobbly patron to his cab. Getting the door open with one hand, I used the other to grab his waistband as he started to go down and tossed him in the back with one heave. “Damn, lady, you got some muscle on you,” the cabbie observed.
