by Rob Thurman
“And if you think we’re going yet, you had better pull up a bar stool and wait. If you want more wine, you’ll have to go somewhere else. I’m not serving you. Or you.” I added those two words in address to Trinity. “Until my friends are back, I’m not going anywhere. Oh, and Mr. Trinity?” I said as I passed him. “My friends aren’t your friends anymore and they haven’t been for a while. I’m sure you’ve been around long enough to block telepathic or empathic probes, but my boys aren’t stupid. They fight demons because it’s right. They worked for you to accomplish that, but they learned over the years.”
“Learned what?” he said stonily.
“That Oriphiel isn’t the only prick in town.”
When I reached the phone, I hit REDIAL and pretended to order a pizza into another wretched voice mail recording. Not much in the way of breakfast food and I hoped the son of a bitch actually sent one as a cover story. As much as Eli had angered me right now, he was the only demon I could get in contact with. Solomon had, much like a married man, never left his number and his club was still burned to the ground, so no go there. I didn’t want to be standing with Griffin and Zeke at the Light’s last clue if Eden House went postal, the three of us surrounded by the holy choir—Heaven’s wrath on one side, Trinity’s blazing Eden House shotguns on the other.
Eligos was trying to mess with my head with the fear that he had Leo. I knew he didn’t have Leo. That didn’t change the fact that I’d known the demon was a killer all along, but if he followed us to Rhyolite, at least that would be one more knife up our sleeve. I didn’t have to like Eli. In fact, I could despise him for the murdering monster he was. It didn’t change the fact that I could also use him and respect what he brought to the table. I’d seen Oriphiel’s face when Eli had whispered in his ear. The angel was afraid of the demon, which made Eli serious shit, a deadly weapon, and a good advantage. As long as I didn’t forget he didn’t care whom he killed to get the Light—angels, humans, or me.
As for Solomon? Who knew? He’d tell you he cared, that he didn’t want to kill, but would that stop him?
Sooner or later, I would find out.
Zeke and Griffin arrived back from burying the finger about two hours later, an hour after the pizza had shown up. It was a double garlic anchovy special. Eli—smugness incarnate. Too bad for him that I rather liked garlic and I loved anchovies. It did keep Trinity, Goodman—who’d shown up not long after the angels—and the other two Eden Housers at a distance. The angels kept their distance as well, but I doubted it had anything to do with the pizza. It could’ve been any number of things. Some angels, like Oriphiel, had superiority complexes and considered humans just a bundle of walking sin waiting to happen. Others were mystified by the entire mammal experience; still others were following orders of middle management . . . there to do the job and not get involved with the natives. It was the rare angel that wanted to hang around and chat. They existed, but you didn’t often see them with Eden Housers.
These angels took a table in the corner, folded their hands, and froze into three identical positions. Com muning silently with one another over the plan or taking a nap. Who knew? The only difference between the other two and Oriphiel was eye color. Oriphiel’s were as silver as his hair. The angel to his right had pale brown eyes and the one to his left dark blue. The rest was the same: faces, suits, hair. Like a cluster of Stepford Angels, which made me think Oriphiel was the sole middle-management angel of the group. The other two were there for orders only. No equal, free-will birds here to divide the glory with. It was all for Oriphiel . . . oh, and Heaven too.
Oriphiel was so much more like humans than he ever knew. I didn’t see Trinity sharing any of the information about the Light with the other Houses or there would be out-of-state Trinitys here. It spoke volumes that there weren’t.
“Fuck,” Zeke said succinctly at the sight of Trinity and the angels. Swatting in annoyance at Lenny who was perched on his shoulder, tugging at the random stray copper strand, he repeated it. “Fuck.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself.” I sighed, then nodded at the now-cold pizza. “Want a slice? Keep the vampires away.”
“Vampires do not fear garlic.” One of the angels had come out of his coma.
Griffin frowned. “Don’t go there. There are no such things as vampires. Demons are enough, all right? So shut up about any damn vampires.” He was right. For Griffin, demons were more than enough evil in this world. It would be cruel, with the loss of his brothers and sisters in arms to tell him differently. He didn’t need to know and it wouldn’t do him any good, not now.
Griffin’s mood, normally easygoing, had not improved with the burial detail or what he saw before him. “And for that matter, why the hell do you bother to show up now? The House is gone. Most everyone’s dead. If you can’t show up when we need you, why do you come down here slumming with your dirty servants at all?”
Zeke shook his head as Lenore flew off to pick at what was left of the pizza. “Leo.” He retwisted his braid that the bird had done his best to destroy. “You should tell him.”
Tell him how I knew Leo was safe. Griffin needed that. He needed one less of his friends to be dead. But I couldn’t tell him how I knew. Leo had been in on my plan for a long time now. He wouldn’t want me endangering it with loose lips about where he might be. I could do something else for Griffin though. Hopefully it would be enough. “Griffin.” I turned him away from the angels of whom his opinion seemed to drop drastically. He was losing it all. His House. His friends. His faith. “Griffin,” I repeated. “I can’t tell you where Leo is or how I know he’s safe, but touch me. Know that I’m telling you the truth.”
He focused on me. “You’d let me?”
“You deserve it and you need it, so go on.” I dropped my shield just a fraction, the one I’d long ago built up against telepaths and empaths. I waited until I felt the lightest of touches as he felt the truth.
He smiled, weary face relieved. “He is all right. You do know.”
“I do.” I smiled, just as I slammed the shield back up in time to have an angel’s psychic probe hit and bounce off. One of the silver boys winced as if he had a headache. “That’s what you get for trying to walk in uninvited,” I said with satisfaction. “It must just kill you that humans have it too: telepathy, empathy, and even other psychic talents you don’t have.” Fire starting didn’t mix well with feathers.
Eden House had always said it was God’s plan, giving humans those powers—to fight the demons on even ground. More and more it was clear they didn’t have a clue what God’s plan was and never had. This was the most prime of examples. An Eden House rogue board president, Trinity, meets Above’s middle management while the CEOs are on vacation, and a merger is born. Any big corporation could tell you how that worked—it didn’t.
Zeke had moved to stand at Griffin’s shoulder, but his gaze wasn’t on demons. It was on Trinity and the other three Eden Housers. “How was Florida?” he said without emotion. “Bring us a postcard?” Griffin might have come to see what Trinity was . . . not a good man, no matter that was the side he claimed. But there had been good people in the Vegas House, and he had liked them, felt as if he’d belonged. Griffin was a social creature and he hated Trinity now. Trinity had tried to use him while planning on rejecting him and didn’t seem to give a damn his own House had burned.
Zeke had considered those in the House comrades, but he couldn’t go further than that. His bonding emotions extended to Griffin and to a lesser degree to Leo and me. He missed his comrades, but he had never had emotions for Trinity one way or the other—until now. He didn’t care if Trinity and all the Houses of the world rejected him—as long as he had Griffin. He did care, however, how it made his partner feel. He cared a great deal. As Griffin looked after him, he looked after Griffin . . . although in a slightly more homicidal way. “We missed you at the battle,” he went on, and his Colt Anaconda was in his hand. I had a feeling Zeke didn’t plan on missing Trinity now
. . . or a good chunk of the wall behind him.
If he killed Trinity, Goodman and the two others would be at his throat in an instant. Truthfully, I wouldn’t put my money on them. Shotguns against the Anaconda, that didn’t really matter. Them against Zeke, that was the meat of the matter. And meat was what Zeke would make of them. But there were the angels—at least one a high-level angel—and whether they could take Zeke or not, I didn’t know.
Nor was there any need to find out. When I found the Light, I wanted a virtual crowd around me. Demons, angels, humans. Whatever it took to muddy the waters. If they were preoccupied with one another, they wouldn’t be concentrating on me. If Eli showed up with the price I was charging for the Light, if Solomon showed up to demonstrate what side he was really on—angels, demons, humans—it was going to be one massive brawl.
Finally, after all these years, Kimano could rest. I could rest.
As for Heaven, Hell, and Earth . . . let the pieces fall where they may.
My way.
I looked at Griffin and he wrapped his fingers around Zeke’s wrist. He didn’t say “Safety on” to halt Zeke, but I imagine he thought it loudly enough that Zeke heard it in his mind. He had to have because he growled and moved away from them all, not showing them his vulnerable back once. Lenore had flown back to his shoulder with a shred of anchovy in his beak and was eyeing the angels with suspicious, beady eyes. He swallowed the bit of fish and squawked at the angels, “Whom the angels named Lenore.” But these angels hadn’t named Lenore. He had more or less named himself, and he definitely didn’t consider himself birds of a feather with them. “Nevermore. Nevermore,” he hissed with dark emphasis. That the angels didn’t give him a second glance was their mistake, a huge one. Forgive me if I didn’t bring it to their attention.
We waited a few more hours. What I had to do might be better done in the dark with no tourists around. Better safe than sorry. It gave me a chance to get the rest of the plaster dust out of my hair and pull it up in a twist with loose curls springing everywhere. It also let me brush my teeth free of garlic, because offending Trinity wasn’t worth offending myself and half the city to boot. I didn’t bother with makeup this time. If I was going to wear war paint at the end of this day, it would be made of blood. But hopefully we’d get past this last bread crumb without a fight. Don’t get me wrong. There would be a fight, but I wanted it at the end . . . when I claimed the Light. When everyone tried to buy it from me or take it from me.
Then there would be blood.
Finally we left, and “finally” truly was the word for it. Except for Griffin, Zeke, and Lenore, the company wasn’t entertaining. The angels and their servants didn’t play pool or darts. Or talk. Or do much other than blink balefully at us (that would be Goodman), coldly (Trinity), and not at all (the angels). It made my eyes water to watch the latter; unmoving, unblinking, they were like silver and marble statues, nothing like Malibu Angel from Wilbur ’s place. I don’t think they even breathed—although in human form they would have to. At least, I thought they would.
Zeke spent his time gathering up weapons, some of his that he kept here and some of mine. Since he seemed to have enough for Griffin and me as well as him, including three shotguns, I stuck with my Smith. I did make sure to slip several speed loaders in my messenger bag just in case. I expected Trinity or at least Goodman to protest, but they didn’t. I guess having three shining warriors of Heaven on your side evened the odds and then some from their point of view.
Rhyolite was about two and a half to three hours north of Vegas, taking U.S. 95. There were ten of us. We took three cars—mine, held together by once-shiny red paint and sheer hope, and two of the Eden House cars, big, black, and official looking. “Why aren’t they white?” I asked Griffin, who sat beside me in the passenger seat. “Isn’t white all that is holy and good? Pearly gates? Fluffy-white-cloud cities?”
“Too hard to keep clean with all the dust and sand,” he grunted, sliding down and pushing the seat back to close his eyes. “And demon blood.”
“So cleanliness is better than godliness, not just next to it? The things you learn.” I looked at the brown-gold skin of my hands on the steering wheel and grinned. “And pure white isn’t all that. I could’ve told you.”
“I was born pasty. It’s not my fault,” Zeke grumbled from the backseat.
I reached back with one hand and smoothed his copper hair. “No, sugar, none of this has ever been your fault.”
He looked confused for a moment, then did what Zeke did best with confusion—he ignored it. “What are you going to do with the Light when you get it?”
“More to the point, do you think either side will let you keep it or choose whom to give it to?” Griffin murmured, his eyes still shut, obviously still wiped from the night before. Emotionally and physically. The death of so many comrades. That was triply hard on an empath as it was on the rest of us. “It’s going to be a massacre.”
“Yes, indeed it is.” My grin tightened to something with very little humor. I put my sunglasses on and ramped the speed up to ninety.
“Sounds fun,” Zeke said seriously. “Can I kill Trinity then?”
“Kit, when the time comes, you can kill anyone you want,” I promised. Griffin opened his eyes and shot me a questioning glance, but I didn’t answer. When it was time, he’d see—see if he’d still serve Heaven or serve anyone but Zeke and himself. I wasn’t the only one whose life was going to change. He and Zeke were going to have to make a choice, and I had to say I was really curious to know the way they were going to go. Maybe even worried. You try and raise them right, but in the end, they have to make their own way. Make their own decisions. I shook my head.
Kids.
Chapter 14
Rhyolite was a few miles from a tiny town called Beatty. I stopped there at a little gas station. I didn’t need gas, but I was thirsty and a candy bar wouldn’t kill me. Mainly, though, it was to irk the rest of the wagon train behind us. There was a bigger place, the Death Valley Nut and Candy Company on the north end of town, but they were so big, bright, and shiny that I figured they had all the business they needed. I liked giving my business to someone who actually could use it, and this ramshackle place looked like it could use all the help it could get.
I got out of the car and headed in, smiling at the actual rusty ding of a bell overhead. Didn’t hear that much anymore. I touched a dreamcatcher hanging from the ceiling and gave it a gentle push. Inside, an American Indian teenager slouched over the counter, thumbing slowly through a magazine. He had short black hair, copper skin, and a long-sleeved T-shirt that used to be black but now was faded gray. “What you want?” he said, with such incredible boredom that I was amazed he could keep his heart pumping from the sheer weight of the tedium of it all.
“Food, water, peace on Earth.” I spread my arms, braced my hands on the counter, and gave him a big smile as a reference point. “And service with a smile maybe?”
He looked up when he heard my voice . . . female—ding . . . and smiled back. Smirked, rather—a genuine, horny sixteen-year-old smirk. I might have passed the big three-O, but I still had it. I laughed at myself—which is some of the very best laughter there is. “I’ve got more than a smile for—” A dark wrinkled hand smacked the back of his head hard. His grandfather or great-grandfather stepped up beside him.
“You show respect, Aaron. You show it to every visitor. You never know who might walk through our door.” With iron gray hair streaked with white and tied back into a long ponytail, the man bowed his head. “I apologize for my grandson’s slothful, rude ways. I am Samuel Blackhawk. Welcome.”
By this time, Griffin and Zeke were wandering the whole two aisles of the store and Trinity and his men stood behind me. I gave Trinity and the others a dismissive look over my shoulder. “I’m hungry. So wait here or wait in the car. Up to you.” Then I turned my attention back to Samuel Blackhawk and held out my hand. He hesitated for a second, then took it with exquisite care.
&n
bsp; “Your eyes—I remember them.” His own dark eyes flickered. “You are beautiful. You are terrifying.”
“And you’re a wise man with a silver tongue and one who knows how to treat a lady.” I gripped his hand. Because I wasn’t beautiful in the physical sense. My mixture of races made me striking, unusual, and definitely eye-catching. I was happier with that. Why be beautiful like so many when you can be uncommon? When you can stand out like the single exotic glow of a garnet in a field of tacky gold? As for terrifying, there were some demons and others on my shit list that could testify to that too. “Samuel Blackhawk, I would like three bottles of water and six candy bars. What would you like?” I released his hand and held up a finger as he began to demur. “I like you, Samuel, and I want to give you a present. And those men behind me with sour faces and even more sour dispositions are going to pay for it. Now, what would you like?”
He smiled then, showing one missing tooth at the bottom, and the look he gave Trinity and his crew wasn’t the respectful one he gave me. “A truck. I would like a new truck. Mine only runs when it rains.” Which out here was to say never.
I turned, pushed up, and sat on the counter. “Well? Someone go buy Mr. Blackhawk a truck. It’s a small town, but I’m sure someone has something for sale.” They didn’t move. Neither did I, other than to examine my nails. I kept them short, but the bronze was still chipping. Considering the week I’d had, I wasn’t surprised. I’d gone with the red first, but, no, the bronze was better, I thought. In fact . . .
“The Light,” Trinity said tightly.
I raised my eyes. Who was pulling whose leash now? “When we have the truck.”
He could have shot me. He wanted to, I knew. But there were Griffin and Zeke and civilians. He wasn’t running the show anymore, not that he would admit it. He turned, back straight, and left the store to confer with his men. Thirty minutes later Samuel had his new truck. It was big, desert worthy, and a dark metallic green. I frowned, but took the keys from Goodman’s stiff fingers and handed them to Samuel.
