Trick of the Light t-1

by Rob Thurman

  “Hand grenades.” Griffin said it as calmly as he would’ve said, Watch out for that gum on the sidewalk. “The ones we keep locked up in the weapons arsenal and have to have Mr. Trinity’s permission to use. Those grenades?”

  Mr. Trinity was head of Vegas Eden House. He did not have a nickname. He might not even have had a first or middle name. Mr. Trinity could make Jackie boy pee his pants with the rise of one iron gray eyebrow.

  “Yep.” Zeke waved for a beer, the pretzels apparently having made him thirsty, before wiping the salt on his jeans with combat-scarred hands just like Griff’s.

  “Did you get permission?”

  The green eyes slid uncertainly toward Griffin. “No.”

  “Did you break the lock or kick down the door?” Griffin was now pinching the bridge of his nose before slipping on his sunglasses and threading an agitated hand through his hair.

  “Kicked down the door. Maybe that wasn’t the right thing to do?” From Zeke’s tone he’d figured out just now that, no, it wasn’t the right thing to do. It was the expedient thing to do, the black and white thing, but perhaps not the correct thing.

  “Never mind. They needed a metal door anyway.” Griffin dropped his hand and dismissed it as if it were nothing, just that quickly, and slung an arm over Zeke’s shoulder. “Let’s go kill ourselves a demon, assuming it’s not just a pissed-off gecko.” Zeke looked mildly relieved and they sauntered out with their duffel bag.

  Zeke was going to be in big shit and Griffin was going to get him out of it. Bottom line, Eden House couldn’t afford to lose a telepath. They might only be able to sense surface thoughts, but it was enough to spot a demon—or a robber, but that’s something we found out later.

  Regardless, the House knew if they tossed Zeke, Griffin, their empath, was gone too. They couldn’t afford to lose two of their best. They did have a few more telepaths and empaths, but humans with talents were few and far between, at least until evolution picked up a little speed, and Griffin and Zeke were their strongest by far.

  Griffin looked back at me, his expression both desperate and fierce. I put a finger to my lips. Their bosses would hear nothing from me. If he thought he could hide the fact that Zeke had done it, more power to him. I wouldn’t give him away.

  “Those two,” Leo grunted as he refilled the pretzel bowl with a rustle of a bag a few weeks past expiration.

  “They have a long way to go,” I admitted as I watched them pass the window to turn the corner that led to the alley where Griffin parked his car—the same alley where we’d destroyed the demon last night, “but I think they just might get there. As long as they learn Eden House isn’t the be-all and end-all of existence.”

  “So it’s not the shit?” he said solemnly, and shoved the pretzels my way—already knowing the answer.

  “No, not nearly the shit it thinks it is,” I said absently as I crunched some stale bread and salt, but he already knew that. “Has Robin called back yet?” He’d called last night when I was out. He said he’d call back today. Robin Goodfellow was one of the many contacts I’d made throughout my life. If I didn’t know something, which was rare, he was likely to.

  “No, but he’s not exactly punctual. The orgies tend to slow him down,” Leo said dryly. True. Robin did like his extracurricular activities. I finished up with the ice, ran a cold, tousling hand through my unruly mass of hair, and had just started working on the glasses when the phone call came. Robin’s impatient, snarky voice was on the other end. It was his usual smooth tone, a tone that always seemed to carry the message Let me fly down to Vegas and show you, or you and Leo, or you, Leo, and anyone else you might have in mind, a good time. “The Light of Life, that’s what you said you were interested in, right?” he asked. “Instead of my naked and amazingly sculpted body? Your loss. Your horrifically catastrophic loss.”

  I ignored the usual bragging . . . truthfully, it wasn’t all bragging . . . and focused on the Light. I was “interested” in it and had been for years. I’d spent the past few of them waiting for news of it to surface, a whisper of a dying demon two months ago to finally echo the rumors, and then set to tracking Robin down via the network of people like me. People in the business of knowing things.

  The demon hadn’t known the location of the Light and very probably didn’t genuinely know anything at all—demons like the little sin of gossip as much as humans do, but Robin . . . Robin definitely knew his shit, which made finding him worth my while. He didn’t stick in one place too often, but if there was anything worth knowing that I didn’t, then he would.

  “Yes, the Light of Life. I’m looking for it just like I said the last time I called and the time before that and the time before that. Have you found anything?” I demanded. I’d noticed Eden House had been looking for it as well and looking hard. Whether they’d known about it as long as I had was a different story. Griffin and Zeke couldn’t tell me. They weren’t high enough to be in the real loop. They were strictly demon chasers, nowhere near management level. They didn’t know what their bosses did. And in some cases, such as this one, they didn’t know what I did either.

  “I’ve heard something, but I’m in New York and I’m in no position to leave. I have friends in trouble. I’m in trouble. It’s like the bad old days when we chased the demons and Eden House out of the city all in one night. I never was able to get the scales and feathers out of my best cashmere coat. I billed the Vatican and the Church of Satan, but did I get my money? No, not a damn penny. Of course, the party afterward almost made up for it. You’ve never seen so many drunk vampires and werewolves in your life. Even Wahan ket showed up, and you know what it takes to pry his dusty, mummified ass out of the museum basement. I remember . . .”

  It was honestly awe-inspiring, who and what you could see if you traveled every corner of the world and kept your eyes open. What you could hear as well, but I didn’t have time for Robin’s trip down memory lane, as entertaining as it usually was. I cut him off impatiently, only verbally, although if he’d been talking to me in person . . . It’s so difficult to be good sometimes. “Robin, I thought you were in a hurry. I know I am.”

  “Fine. Fine. Deny me a little stress relief. The best I can do is give you a name.” He did sound a little stressed under his customary tale spinning and Robin never sounded stressed. He’d fallen in with a bad crowd apparently. That made him more like me. Good for him. I didn’t want to be the only one. Although vampires and werewolves, tsk, were nothing but fanged and furry trash. I’d stick to demons.

  “Who, then? What’s the name?”

  “Wilder Hun.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said incredulously.

  “That’s what he calls himself. Born Eugene Gleck, so who can blame him.” He rattled off an address. “He’s also a molester of sorts, out of jail a year now.” He would’ve told me to watch myself, but he knew better.

  “A woman.” I rapped a fisted hand against the bar. Of sorts? What did he mean by of sorts?

  “No.”

  “A man?” Less usual, but it happened. More and more, it happened.

  “No. Think alcohol, a great deal of it, and a redneck’s most faithful companion.”

  Ah, it was simply Robin being Robin. I didn’t roll my eyes—that would be juvenile—but it took effort. “All right. Your random pervert. So no one can say if it might have been consensual?”

  “I don’t think they had the Pickup Truck Whisperer around to ask, but it wasn’t his and I hear the muffler was never quite the same.” I heard noises behind his voice. “I’ve got to go. Wire the money to my account.” In the background I heard him say, “I said, get away from her. Salome doesn’t like you. You do not want to end up down the incinerator like that Great Dane.”

  He hung up before I could get the news on Salome and what she had against Great Danes; so sue me—I was curious. Born curious and lived every day the same way. Ah well, maybe the next time I talked to Robin I’d get the story on the cranky Salome. I had Wilder Hun, the moron
ic-named truck molester,. to deal with now.

  Wilder lived an hour or so from Vegas in Moapa. That’s the thing about Vegas that’s so different from other cities. There’s no main drag, then suburbs, more suburbs, scattered houses, rural area stretching on and on . . . no. There’s Vegas and then there’s nothing. Nothing but dirt, sand, tumbleweeds, and the occasional mass of horny tarantulas swarming across the road during mating season. You really have to settle in and drive to find the next signs of life. It ain’t cheaper outside town, baby, because there is no outside town. You have to haul ass to the next town and watch the gorgeous, brown, flat, dead scenery in between.

  When I finally arrived at the Hun Mansion, a shack with a distinct lean, I checked my Smith & Wesson 500 and slid it into the back waistband of my jeans and covered it with my shirt, a Chinese silk and brocade top in reds, golds, and peacock blue. It’d warmed up too much for the sweater. That was Nevada winter weather for you. The shotgun I left covered with a blanket in the backseat of the car. A round or two from my Smith wouldn’t do much but annoy a demon, but Hun was most likely no demon, just your run-of-the-mill pervert. And I trusted my judgment enough to play it that way. I also trusted myself to take down any pervert, run-of-the-mill or otherwise.

  They say the gun is the great equalizer. Not so. A gun blowing off a guy’s balls, that’s the great equalizer.

  I sat on the hood of my car, the metal hot but bearable, and called out to the guy with a hammer banging on the side of his “house.” “Hun. I’m looking for a Wilder Hun. Is that you?”

  There is ugly, then there’s ugly, and then there’s your mama hooked up with King Kong. He was tall, six foot seven at best guess, hairy . . . long, scraggly brown hair and beard, tufts of hair sticking out of the collar of his T-shirt. His arms were like prehistoric caterpillars, bristling with spiny fur, even his ankles from under his jeans . . . never mind. Big Foot in a torn T-shirt and dirty jeans, and with eyes the color of algae on pond water.

  Take your picture of the desert yeti and move on to something more touristy and a little less nauseating.

  He spit on the ground. “That’s me. Whatcha want, little girl?”

  I get called that a lot. I was five-five, flat-footed, but I was rarely flat-footed. I liked heels, the higher, the better, and it wasn’t because of my height. What you can do with a knife you can do just as easily with the three-inch heel of a boot—it only takes more pressure.

  You don’t need height. Guns, boots, and attitude, that’s all you really need.

  He started toward me before I could respond to his “little girl” remark, and I held up a hand, then patted the warm metal beside me. “Whoa, Sasquatch. This is my car. It’s a very nice car, and I love it. Don’t you have some sort of fifty-foot restriction against approaching possible victims?”

  The teeth he bared in a snarl weren’t in the expected Sasquatch-Big Foot range. They were quite nice. Sparkly, pearly white, and so incredibly perfect, they had to be dentures. I had a feeling jail was only one of the punishments Hun had gotten for his crime. In a parking lot somewhere, cavity-ridden teeth had probably once littered the asphalt. Someone had loved their truck as much as I loved my car and had used either a crowbar or a tire iron to prove it.

  I started to comment on his bright, orthodontically perfect nonsmile, but remembered I did want some information from this man, and insulting his postcoital dental repair probably wasn’t the way to go. “Just kidding. Just kidding.” I smiled brightly myself and patted the hood beside me again. “Have a seat.” Grumbling, he sat and the car groaned under his weight. My nose stung under the smell, but I kept talking. “I’ve come all the way from Vegas to chat with you and I brought some friends.” I pulled a small wad of cash out of my pocket, spread the bills out, and waved them like a fan. I gave him geisha-girl eyes over the top edges. Men, even those with excessive monkey genes, never fail to fall for that . . . well, that and the four-inch chrome barrel I shoved in his ribs.

  The stick and the carrot.

  It was a pretty sad commentary that human society never much got past that stage.

  “A friend of mine says you know something about the Light of Life.” Griffin had mentioned in passing two years ago that Eden House was looking for it, had been looking for it, although he didn’t know for how long—but it was important. It was important all right. What they didn’t tell him was that it was the most important thing that existed in the world. I was surprised he was able to hear what little he had. He had no idea what it truly was or what it could do. It was hard to say who did know in the House—either Trinity and Goodman or only Trinity. High-level info for high-level jerks.

  Neither knew what the Light looked like though. At least I doubted it. I wasn’t all that sure myself. It was enough that I knew what it did or what it was supposed to do. If it was everything I’d heard it to be . . . let’s just say Trixa knew the value of a thing. Anything. Everything. Griffin and Zeke might be in the dark on this one, but not me.

  The Light of Life . . . an impenetrable shield that could protect Heaven or Hell from any attack, any second war. Who could put a price on the ultimate defensive weapon? Who could put a price on invulnerability? On absolutely guaranteed survival?

  I could.

  Contacts, context, and a knowledge of history—it made me one smart girl.

  Money made Hun one cooperative guy.

  He looked down at the barrel jammed hard against his ribs, assuming he had any under that thick layer of blubber. Then he looked at the money. It was an easy choice. He reached over and took the money. “I heard of it. Some caver, Jeb, found it in an abandoned mine a few towns over. Don’t know why he calls it that. It’s not like a diamond or anything. Just a shiny quartz rock as big as your fist. The guy says it glows at night, but what’s that worth?” He spit in the dirt. “Nada.”

  “And why’d he call it the Light of Life?” I didn’t move the gun. There’d been many a donkey who’d gotten the carrot and then kicked the crap out of the veggie farmer right after. I was content to wait until our conversation was over and Big Foot was back hammering at his shack.

  He frowned, hiding the pearly whites. “I don’t know. He just did. From the minute he found it and came over to show it to me. The Light of Life, he kept calling it. But he’s a caver and cavers are nuts, so what the hell? He can call it whatever he wants.”

  By the time I left, I had the revolver under the passenger seat, a layer of dust coating my car ’s red paint, and a giant gluteus maximus print on the hood. Call the National Enquirer. Sasquatch exists and here’s the proof—ass-print exclusives, fifty bucks a pop.

  I also had Jeb the crazy caver’s address and wasn’t the day looking brighter and brighter? A particularly loud song blared on the radio and I slapped it off. The Light of Life. It was going to do two things for me. Two rewards rolled into one. It was going to get me something far more valuable than gold or diamonds and at the same time, a whole lot of nasty, nasty vengeance on the son of a bitch who’d killed my brother.

  You’re supposed to take care of your younger brother, no matter how far he strays. Travel was in my family’s blood. That was a given. You still take care of your brother. No matter how far he goes. No matter what.

  Kimano.

  I stared blindly at the road. The black sheep of the family. Lazy, content with beaches and waves. Work could always wait another day. For all the ways he was so different from me, I loved him. Loved the hell out of him. Sure, there was work to be done, but it didn’t mean he always had to do it. That’s how far gone I was on my baby brother. Me. Bar owner, informant, occasional demon killer, and various other things best not spread around. I edged into the workaholic stage. But to me it had never mattered that my brother wasn’t like me. Kimano never failed to make me laugh. In all his life, he never failed . . .

  But once.

  Smooth brown skin covered with blood and torn to shreds, dark eyes staring blankly at the sky. I hadn’t laughed then. I hadn’t thought I’
d ever laugh again.

  Years later I’d learned to, but the true laughing I was waiting on, the laughing I craved with everything in me was the kind I would spill over the body of my brother’s killer. We all have days in our lives. The Day. The One. Weddings, births, hopscotching on the moon . . . this would be my day. And my patience was running thin. Now, with this—the Light—things were finally moving. Because they all wanted the Light. The demons—Below. And Eden House, which equaled Above.

  Things were going to start moving and moving fast.

  I’d listened and pried and questioned a long time now and with what I knew, I could have Kimano’s killer. Hell would turn him over in a heartbeat if I promised them the Light. And it had been a demon that had killed my brother. I was as sure of that as I was of anything. A demon kill . . . it wasn’t anything you ever forgot. And one dark silver-gray scale left behind.

  One was all it took.

  The demon wasn’t all I wanted. It was what I wanted the most, but still not all. It was asking for a lot, shooting for the moon, but sometimes . . . once in a rare while, you can have your cake and eat it too. I had better uses for the Light than Hell did—and Heaven . . .

  They could get in line as well.

  Chapter 3

  Jeb the Caver.

  What was there to be said about Jeb the, assumed by Hun, crazy caver?

  Well, for one, he was dead.

  Not demon dead, but when you’re dead, you’re dead, and do the particulars really matter?

  I sighed and pulled a ponytail holder out of my jeans pocket and bundled my curls on top of my head, clearing the way for a better look. He was tied to an old kitchen chair with wire that ate into his flesh, once raw and bloody—now dry and stiff. Whoever had done the fancy stuff had used a knife. Knife wounds are quite different from damage made by demon claws. Those are serrated, and while some combat knives are, they’re not quite so finely serrated. Jeb had been tortured pretty thoroughly. The Light might have been worthless to a jeweler, but it had meant something to him—touched him somehow, and he wasn’t about to give it up. And even with two fingers and an ear missing and a savagely slit throat, I don’t think he had. Someone had gone away mad. What a shame.