Trick of the Light t-1

by Rob Thurman

  “I don’t care. I care only about the Light.” He was right there—his breath mine. His mouth mine. And it wasn’t that of a monster . . . a demon. The breath was that of a man touched with the faintest smoky taste of whiskey. The lips were slowly lazy as the drip of honey and artful. Extremely, amazingly, unbelievably artful. This time not a man’s—unless that man had lived thousands of years with the sole purpose of learning to please a woman with a single kiss. It could make you forget where you were, who he was, who you were. If he could do all that with one kiss, I could see why some women might find souls overrated.

  Some women.

  When he pulled back, his eyes were gleaming with success . . . gleaming almost as brightly, in fact, as the blade I held against his throat. Then only my blade was gleaming. Solomon’s amusement, his seduction, it all disappeared behind a veil of tarnished gray. Anger. “Where is the Light?” he demanded darkly.

  “I don’t know. I only know where the next stepping-stone is. Follow me, Solomon, while I follow the path. It’ll be just like The Wizard of Oz. We’ll follow the yellow brick road. I’ll be Dorothy.” I pressed the blade harder. “And you’ll be Toto after a visit to the vet’s office—snip snip . . . so don’t push me.”

  “Trust me, Trixa. I’ll follow you,” he promised, reluctant respect surfacing behind the anger—that of a warrior for another warrior. “There’s no place on Earth you can go that I can’t find you.” Despite the metal at his throat, he kissed me again. It was the barest touch of skin against skin.

  Then he was gone.

  It was just me and my trusty letter opener that I’d borrowed from the desk in the corner and hidden under the mattress. Good enough for paper, but too dull by far for slicing a throat. What Solomon didn’t know wouldn’t get me eaten—at least eaten in the bad way. I fell back on the bed and felt the tingle that prickled with a quicksilver burn up and down every nerve ending.

  Why was it always the bad boys?

  Chapter 8

  “This is it?”

  Griffin looked skeptical. Trinity didn’t bother. He just kept that black gaze on me, patient as a spider. The five other men were hidden behind sunglasses and I didn’t waste a look to see what their reaction was. I didn’t care. They were extras in this little play.

  “This is it,” I said, “this” being the aquarium at Man dalay Bay Casino. I didn’t like aquariums any more than I liked zoos, but the Light was calling me here. As for who the next person was who had a bread crumb deposited in their brain, I’d discovered the Light had a sense of humor. “This way.”

  I waited while one of Eden House’s version of MIBs, Men in Bulgaria sunglasses, paid for our admission. I wasn’t paying for my own kidnapping. Mr. Trinity wouldn’t dirty his godly hands with filthy sinful money—never mind he was rolling in it, and Griffin was distracted. He didn’t like being away from his partner’s side and it showed. He didn’t trust Trinity completely anymore if he trusted him at all, but that didn’t show, not to anyone but me. If the other five were empaths or psychics, it wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t show to them either. Griffin was better than they were. He and Zeke were the prizes of this particular House. They had no equals there.

  Leo was back at the bar feeding scrawny girls and their pudgy dogs. She gave most of her food to her dog. She deserved the help, just as Zeke and Griffin had years ago. “She left with a garbage bag full of food,” he’d said placidly when I’d called him on the phone before we left Eden House for the aquarium. “If she does come back to help clean, we may have to roll her through the mouth of the alley.”

  “You never know,” I’d said sweetly. “Angels disguise themselves to test the generosity of us sinful mortals. You may have earned a spot in Heaven.” With a snort and no comment, he had hung up on me.

  “Miss Leo?” Griffin said in a low tone at my ear, picking up on the emotion that I hadn’t bothered to try to conceal. Griffin was missing his own partner as well, I knew.

  “Maybe some. He’s certainly going to be sorry he missed this.” I sighed.

  The eight of us moved through a mass of tourists—some pudgy, some thin, and all seemingly dressed from a 1992 JC Penney catalogue. They’d obviously broken out their best for Vegas. Plastic clothes for a plastic town. We went through the underwater ship and then through the tunnel where fish and sharks swam over our heads. One swam especially close, bumped his bullet nose against the glass above us, and rolled—the traditional shark move for taking his prey down. “I think we made a friend.” I waved at it and mentally cursed the Light for at least the fifth time.

  After we exited the tunnel, I stood for a second, my head cocked to one side . . . listening, but not really. More like feeling a tickle in my brain leading me along. “This way.”

  “This way” turned out to be a door marked NO ENTRY. Griffin kicked it in, using as little force as he could so the splintering of the jamb wouldn’t be spotted from the outside hall. Inside the room was a walkway over the shark tank. Netting rose from the rail to well above six feet. Didn’t want the employees accidentally tumbling in and ruining ticket sales with their blood and snack-able entrails.

  “All right.” I leaned against the netting to watch the sea life, and then sucked in my breath, stripped off my shirt and jeans down to panties and bra, and said, “Someone give me a knife or cut me a door.”

  Griffin’s mouth fell open. For such a bright, intelligent, and serious guy, it wasn’t such a good look for him. “You. . . . down there? I thought it’d be one of the trainers or guides. You mean the Light planted a clue in some sea bass’s tiny little brain?” He moved forward, stepping on my clothes without awareness. “And, please God, tell me it’s a sea bass.”

  “Did I ever tell you my brother liked sharks? And not so much planted a clue as left a trail.” One of the MIB was slicing an opening through the mesh and Mr. Trinity didn’t seem concerned in the slightest if I lost a body part or two. Big surprise. “He thought they were the beauties of the ocean. Not dolphins or orcas, he just had a thing about sharks. He even swam with them.”

  “Your brother swam with sharks.” Griffin followed my gaze downward. “He wasn’t any smarter than you, then, was he?”

  I smiled, kissed his cheek, and was through the netting and diving into the water below before he could grab my arm. Not that he didn’t try. A very good friend, Griffin.

  The water was cooler than I expected. Not cold, but not warm either, but the salt in it burned my raw back like battery acid. I ignored it as best I could and began swimming down. I didn’t have to go too far. With eyes wide open I saw electric blue and yellow fish come to nibble at my knees and toes curiously. I saw the wavering faces of tourists who were getting a far better show than they paid for and then I saw it, the same seven-foot-long shark that had bumped and grinned at me—you haven’t seen a true grin until you’ve seen a shark grin.

  Seven feet isn’t really all that big for a shark. They’ve seen them twelve feet long, but right now seven feet was fine by me. Nothing bigger required. It was one of the few cases when smaller was better.

  It swam up to me slowly, black eyes round and familiar. It looped around me until I felt the sandpaper scrape of its skin against mine. I reminded myself it had something to give me, to pass on. That’s why I hadn’t brought a knife borrowed from one of the MIB. That’s why I didn’t open my mouth for a gur gly “Oh shit,” not that drowning while being eaten is much better than simply being eaten. I had faith in the Light, which was odd, as I had so little faith in so many other things. I also had faith in the elemental soul of the shark. Kimano had, and for all his lazy ways, he’d been a good judge of character. Sharks weren’t the villains movies painted them. In all likelihood they weren’t half as savage as your average teacup poodle.

  I rested a hand on the blunt head and thought of my brother and then of the Light.

  It was there, only the tiniest bit—the barest molecule. But even that lit me up. Filled me from the inside out with safety and home and unen
ding warmth.

  Neither Above nor Below deserved the Light.

  But hadn’t I known that all along? Yet business was business, and few knew backroom negotiations like I did. I knew how to get what I wanted—everything I wanted. My house of cards wasn’t going to tumble down now. There was no way that I would let that happen.

  After the warmth and the light came two faces. The first was Jeb—alive, whole, the torture and death a thing of his future. I saw him through shark eyes as he stared back, cradling a large paper bag in the crook of his arm. From the paper bag came a glow—didn’t they say you shouldn’t hide your Light under a bushel? Or in a bag? Then Jeb moved, and a second face appeared, probably that of the next person who caught the shark’s attention. It could’ve been hours later or a day later; who knew? The face was unfamiliar, but I knew it wouldn’t stay that way. He had stared at the shark, mesmerized. Jeb had brought the Light to the shark, and it had passed something along to the giant fish. The shark had in turn passed it along to the second man. The Light hadn’t been shy about leaving a bit of itself in the shark to go poking about in the guy’s thoughts. Who, where, what? The Light obtained it all . . . and that was what was given to me.

  Whatever the Light had given to the second man, however, was gone from the shark’s brain now. I was assuming that missing information would be the location of the Light. Assuming, hoping. But all I received was where to look next—or rather, whom to look in.

  Clever. I knew where to look for the next trail marker, but the final resting place of the Light, that I still didn’t know.

  Next thing I knew, I was standing on the back of a shark and being pulled upward, back through the netting. I wrapped my arms around Griffin’s free one and literally climbed back up him to the catwalk. Up at the top, I shivered, looked down, and then wrapped my arms around my bare breasts. I glared down at the shark, which was diving playfully with a red lace bra caught in his teeth. Then I laughed. What else could I do? And in my mind Kimano stood at my shoulder, laughing even harder. Black hair, black eyes, sun-browned skin, and a grin brighter than the sun on the Pacific.

  “Funny, is it?” Griffin was trying to control a smile of his own as he disentangled himself from the netting and handed me his jacket.

  I bundled up in it and wrung out my wet hair with a reminiscent curve of my lips. “Just nice to see it isn’t only people who have a little bit of the joker in them.” I leaned back against the netting and called down to the water. “Quite the trickster, aren’t you, Nemo?” I dressed back in my dry clothes, using Griffin’s jacket as a shield.

  “So where is the Light?” Mr. Trinity demanded as we moved on, hopefully before security arrived.

  “Oh, it’s hardly that easy. For a smart man, you underestimate the Light. It’s not like we’re talking a sixty-watt-bulb worth of intelligence or anything. We have a ways to go. The giant guppy just pointed me in the right direction, to the next bread crumb.”

  “And where is that?” Griffin asked curiously. It was better than the harsh demand that had been ready to cross Trinity’s lips.

  “Details.” I offered his jacket back. “Details. Give my brain a chance to sort it out.”

  Trinity didn’t look especially pleased with that and turned to the nearest bodyguard, because that’s what they were: a body for him; just plain guard for me. He tapped his shoulder and pointed down into the water. “Go. See if it tells you anything.”

  The bodyguard’s mouth gave a faint twitch. It wasn’t a happy twitch. He looked at me and I could see him calculating that if I could do it, a glorified bartender about a third his weight, then how dangerous could it be? The sharks must be tame from captivity and daily feedings and, yes, he so didn’t have a clue. He stripped to boxer briefs, which, I had to admit he wore well, and dived in as I had. He came out—the newspapers said later—with a red bra wrapped around his neck and missing a chunk of his calf. We didn’t stay around long enough for the live version. Once the thrashing and bubbling screams from the tank and security started rattling at the door that Griffin had jury-rigged shut behind us, we left. I heard later from Griffin, that aside from the bra and missing flesh, the bodyguard had gotten nothing out of the shark. I was still Eden House’s hole card.

  Before that information had come my way, we’d passed out of the casino into the sun, making our escape as Trinity went on, wasting no thought on the man left behind. “Where is the next step, Iktomi? I assume the Light passed its next bit of the puzzle to you. There is no other reason to be discussing it.”

  “I don’t know.” It wasn’t completely a lie. The winter sun, mildly warm, felt good against my skin and I held my face up to it. “It’s all sliding through my head. One big, jumbled puzzle of letters and identity. It hasn’t come together yet. It might not for a day or two. I’m not quite used to telepathic Lights playing with my brain or its carrier leaving me with a huge appetite for raw fish.” I let the tourists swell around us on the sidewalk. “I want to go home. You can leave your pit bulls behind to watch the place if that’s what you want, but being at home, being someplace familiar will help me get my brain unknotted.” I looked down. “Besides, I have bras there. And while I like to consider myself a free spirit, I’m not that free.”

  I wasn’t sure if it was the bra argument or the little regard Trinity had for me, but he had me dropped off back at the bar with men taking turns watching the place, two at a time. I didn’t offer them any food or shelter. Their car was more plush than my place anyway. Griffin was torn, but not so torn he didn’t go back to Zeke’s side—which was the way it should be. More than ever his partner needed protection . . . from injury, from himself, and maybe from Eden House.

  I walked into the bar and Lenore was pecking, bored at the countertop. A bright eye flashed at me and he cawed, “Boom chika boom.”

  “I’m not Dolly Parton, you horny crow. It’s not that noticeable,” I retorted, then went upstairs to change into some sweats and take a nap. You’d think it would be swimming with the sharks that would take it out of you, but that wasn’t it. It was the Light. It weighed down every thought, buzzing like a swarm of bees setting up camp there—every gray cell a honey cell. I took a quick shower before changing, getting the aquarium salt off me, pulled on the softest sweats I owned, and climbed into bed. It was only then I noticed a sprinkling of brown dog hair on the foot of my bed. I took a quick glance around the room. Nothing was missing. The girl hadn’t been up here, but her fat friend had taken advantage of a soft bed for a nap of his own.

  I clucked my tongue, but I wasn’t mad. If I were a fat little dog, I think I probably would’ve done the same. It was a comfortable bed. He had good taste. I rolled my hand into a loose fist and tucked it under my chin, closed my eyes, and drifted. I dreamed of family. Of traveling the world, as we always had—as our ancestors had—seeing mountains, forests, oceans or water and sand, seeing people of every color and language. Of coming together with my mother, brother, and cousins, laughing and swapping stories, then going our separate ways again. It was a good life, and though each of us was born a wanderer, we kept close—coming together again and again. They were always the best of times, except the last time. Without Kimano.

  “Sorry about that,” Kimano said in my dream. He lounged in the chair in the room’s corner, legs sprawled, wearing bathing trunks with a shell necklace around his neck. I could even see the beads of Pacific Ocean water on him. “I’ll bet I deprived Mama of some prime bitching about my work ethic.”

  “What work ethic?” Sleep was good. Sleep was wonderful. It was the only place I saw Kimano since that bloody beach.

  “True.” He shook his dripping hair as if he were a wet dog, then combed his fingers through it. “But you can work and play at the same time.”

  “You could, but you never did, and Mama knew that.” In the dream I sat with my legs tucked under me on the bed, wearing a bikini with plumeria flowers in my hair. Their scent, so unmistakable . . . more of Heaven than Heaven itself . . . filled t
he air. “But you were still her favorite.” I tried to scowl, but couldn’t pull it off, not in the face of his teasing pleasure.

  “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” He tapped his foot on the side of the chair, dumping a rain of sand on my rug.

  “The lazy wheel, you mean, and cut that out.” But once again I didn’t mean it, not really. Kimano was Kimano. It would be like getting angry at the wind or the moon. He was what he was and I liked that. I loved that. I missed that. I missed that so much.

  “I’m gone, you know,” he said abruptly, sitting up with serious eyes. “All this you’re doing, all that you’re risking, it won’t bring me back, kaikuahine,” Hawaiian for sister. He’d traveled too, but always back to the islands as I always tended to return to the desert. “But I think . . .” He leaned and held out his hand. I did the same and our fingers just brushed. “I think we’ll see each other again. And if we do, I hope my lazy ass doesn’t keep you waiting too long while I’m off wandering. Have a mai tai until I show up.”

  No one can lie to you like your own mind can. I woke up, dry-eyed in a way that was beyond pain. I wanted to think I’d see my brother again, but I didn’t know. I did know Heaven or Hell wasn’t for the likes of me. The Buddha-loving Wilbur and I had that in common. Where did my kind go? The free spirits, the wanderers, the gypsies at heart? We turn our backs on Heaven, refuse Hell—and occasionally kick demon ass while we do it. There was a place for us—I did know that—but whether I deserved the same eternity as my brother, I wasn’t as sure.

  I heard a pounding on the floor, Leo slamming his fist on the ceiling below. “Trixa, get your ass down here!”

  Leo was not in a good mood. It would have been “your beautiful ass” or “your gorgeous ass” if he had been. I sighed, rolled over, and checked the alarm clock. It was just past eight p.m. Considering the day I’d had, I felt I deserved to sleep around the clock, but that particular timbre of pounding meant something was up. And by the time I made it downstairs, that something was up all right, in full force.