Trick of the Light

by Thurman, Rob

  Las Vegas wasn’t New York. Demons and angels had a balance here. As far as I knew, they had for as long as there were enough souls to bother fighting over. It was hard to believe the demons would suddenly try to shift that balance, especially as I didn’t think Eli or Solomon had clued any of their kin in on the Light—the only reason I could think of for them to instigate an out-and-out war.

  Eden House was located in Spanish Trails, one of the oldest gated communities in Vegas . . . fifteen minutes from the Strip, which was hard to believe. There may have been a more expensive neighborhood in the city, but Spanish Trails was still an architect’s wet dream. It was one of the very few places in Vegas you could have a lot of privacy, the eight-million-dollar-compound type of privacy. The main house itself was three stories high and set on five acres. Hell, they even had grass. The governor wished he had it so good. An eight-foot-high white wall surrounded the property with an iron gate painted the same color to keep out the unworthy, the disreputable, and the uninvited. I fit all those categories, but I had never let that sort of thing stop me before, and with the gate wide open, I didn’t have to let it stop me now.

  I careened the car through the thick posts that supported the gate, slid into the curve hidden by tall oleander bushes, and ran over a demon crouched in the driveway. It had been distracted by the arm it had cradled to its chest as it gnawed—a human arm with only half its flesh still clinging to the bone. I’d thought the battle would be over by the time I arrived from the twenty-minute drive, but if it was, it hadn’t gone the way I’d wanted it to. Zeke and Griffin might be persona non grata in pretense and reality, but that wouldn’t stop them from going to the aid of the people they’d worked with for several years. Trinity and Goodman might be dicks for the greater good, but all of the House weren’t like them. Some had the hearts of my boys. Some had compassion, imagination, and that spark that I would call a soul. Those were the ones I didn’t want to see fall. Trinity and Goodman might keep their souls in freezers, but not all of Eden Housers did. I’d fight for them.

  And I’d kill for Griffin and Zeke.

  I slammed on the brakes and vaulted out of the car to pull my HK from the trunk. It was a beauty—an MP5, fully suppressed and illegal as they came—not available at your local 7-Eleven. And, better than being pretty, it was able to take out a shitload of demons without waking the neighbors. It was just in time to nail the demon that snarled and clawed its way out from beneath the undercarriage. I put six sound-muted slugs in its skull, turning its brain and then its entire body into instant pudding. I stepped over it and started running toward the house.

  Most, like Griffin and Zeke, had their own houses, condos, or apartments, but the House kept a minimum of twenty members on-site at all times with five guards watching the building and grounds from nightfall until morning. But those were details I’d heard from the guys. My first official look I’d gotten at the place was when I’d been kidnapped the other night.

  The look I was getting now was far different.

  From opulence, armories, and medical facilities to blood and death. It was a war zone and Eden House had lost this battle. Once I ran through the gaping, double front doors, I could see that. They were still fighting it, trying to stand their ground, but it was over. If the demons had a flag, they would’ve been minutes from planting it. And there wasn’t a single angel in sight. Maybe that didn’t shake the faith of those still alive and fighting, but it pissed me off. Do our dirty work, fight our earthly battles, die for us, but consider our number unlisted. Work miracles for us, but don’t expect the same in return. Those days are over. Our convenience, not yours. But still stick us on top of your Christmas trees. We like that.

  There were flames flickering inside, concealed from the outside by steel blinds, and there were too few people to put them out. No one was about to call 911 either. Eden House took care of Eden House business, even if it meant that Eden House would burn.

  Human bodies littered the foyer. Huge with arched doorways, the space now had its marble floor marred with the dead, blood, and puddles of black ichor that had once been demons. I hesitated. Should I search the ground floor first or head up? The sudden voices from above made that decision for me. I ran up the wide stairs that opened off the foyer. The staircase split off near the first floor, curving to the left and right. I took the right and when I reached the top, I snatched a quick glance around the rotunda. Still nothing but dead bodies, some hanging over the wrought-iron rail. The voices had stopped and this was getting me nowhere fast. “Griffin!” I shouted. “Zeke!”

  I heard it then—not Zeke or Griffin, but the clatter of claws behind me. I turned, twisted sideways, and slammed my boot into the midsection of a fungus green demon. Bright red eyes flared with irritation as the metal-enforced heel passed through the softer belly scales and into firm flesh. Then the force of the kick threw him down the stairs tumbling head over tail, but he was back in seconds—this time flying. I didn’t get to see demons fly often. Despite their wings, they tended to keep close to the ground when they fought, slithering like snakes and lizards. Maybe flying reminded them too much of what they’d once been and had. Then again, I might assume too much. They might not miss the grace and glory. Unlike Solomon who said he did, but he was the only one saying so.

  Being evil for so very long, could you ever be what you were before that? Would you even want to? The great thing about being evil is you don’t care that you’re evil. As a matter of fact, you probably enjoyed the hell out of it . . . no pun intended.

  The downside of being evil is when someone like me shoots your dragon wings to tatters before ramming a gun muzzle in your open, fanged mouth and liquefying your brain. I grabbed another clip from my bag, slammed it home, and started searching for the voices I’d heard earlier. I was about to call for Griffin again, when I heard him. I ran, following the circular hall. Another demon came at me. I hit the floor and rolled as it passed in a rush over me. Swiveling, I shot it in the back of the head, turned, and kept running until I came to what I vaguely remembered as a banquet room for those who lived in the house. Chandeliers and the finest china, it was all crushed to ivory splinters and crystal dust now. That dust glittered along wings and snake heads, giving the demons the air of something else to be put on a Christmas tree—a very dark, gothic Christmas tree.

  There were ten demons and Zeke and Griffin were facing them while standing back to back. They’d been here fighting long enough they’d gone through all their ammo and were now down to knives. That didn’t make them any less dangerous. Zeke was a stone-cold demon killer with a combat knife, because he had no fear, not for himself. No fear of pain or being hurt or even death. Zeke’s mind didn’t allow multitasking. When he was fighting, he was fighting. Period. The only other thought he was capable of was to protect his friends. Kill and protect. In the heat of battle, nothing else existed for him. The Japanese Bushido philosophy said the greatest warrior was one who didn’t fear his own death. Zeke went a step further with not even knowing that he could die. Because he lived in the moment, he didn’t have enough focus left over to consider mortality.

  He was in that moment now. He was covered with slashes of demonic claws, but he was also covered from the waist down in black demon blood. As I stepped into the room, he had just slashed a demon’s neck so forcefully with the serrated edge of his blade that the spinal column split and the demon became a black rain.

  Griffin was deadly himself, quick as a demon, and smart enough to think like them if he had to—to anticipate their moves. Zeke couldn’t multitask at all, but Griffin was the king of it. He rammed his blade through the eye of one demon, while using his other hand to slash an identical blade across the gut of the brown demon hurtling toward him from the side. A mass of entrails spilled free. It wouldn’t kill the creature, but it was enough to have it tumbling back temporarily.

  My boys the killers. I couldn’t have been more proud.

  But ten demons . . . now eight and a half. And scatter
ed among the green and brown lesser demons were two gray and one the cyanotic purple-blue of a strangled corpse. Higher demons. Thanks to Solomon, we now knew these were the ones to watch out for—not demon-lite. Those wouldn’t be so easy to kill.

  “Guys!” I tossed them two Glock .40s out of my messenger bag. Mary Poppins had her endless supply of goodies in her purse. I had an endless supply of goodies too, and they were more useful than tea and freshly baked biscuits. They both dropped one knife apiece and caught the guns. I stepped back out into the hall to give them a clean line of fire and called as I did, “You, grape gecko, want to play?”

  The suffocation-colored demon whipped around and undulated itself toward me with a speed that made a viper look as if it were moving through three feet of tar. It hit me. There was no way to avoid it. No way for a human, at least. Here was another one that if he wasn’t in Solomon and Eli’s league, he was damn close. I did manage to dive to the side quickly enough that although it clipped my side, it didn’t hit me head-on. It did flip me over the rail, the iron hitting me in the ribs. I caught myself with one arm hooking around an arabesque. I hung in midair, my shoulder creaking, and I discovered that my Barney-colored new demon friend might have been almost as fast as Solomon and Eli, but it wasn’t as smart. It perched on the rail above me, baring smoky quartz teeth at me in an arrogantly rapacious grin. It was nice of him to savor the moment. It gave me the opportunity to take its head off at the shoulders. The sound suppressor on the MP5 was only good for one clip. These shots rang loud and true. No matter how big the compound was, someone was bound to hear that and call the police. I coughed as the smoke billowed more thickly and wiped at my dripping face to clear my vision of what had once been a demon who’d thought a little too much of himself.

  Tossing the gun up and over the rail, I used both hands to follow after it. I snagged one foot in a curl of metal and vaulted over the rail with several feet to spare. A member of Eden House stood there, a shocked look on his pale face. “Yoga,” I explained. “It’s good for more than making your way through the Kama Sutra.”

  But it turned out his shock wasn’t for me and my gymnastic ways. As I picked up my gun, he said numbly, “They’re dead. Everyone’s dead.” He had dark blond hair, rumpled from the battle and darkened by the smoke, and a face marked with demon blood and devastation. It made me wish I’d kept my smart mouth shut.

  “Not everyone.” I grabbed his arm and pulled him into the room I’d only just left. I’d heard the barrage of shots. When I passed through the door, I saw what I expected—a floor awash in dark fluid, the remains of the brown and green demons. The two gray ones were still very much in the game. That changed when they heard us come in behind them. One of them turned in time to see me pull the trigger. It turned to smoke before the bullets left my weapon. The other demon left on its own, disappearing as well. I didn’t know if it was from fear or the fact that its job was as good as completed. From what I could tell, I was standing with the last of Eden House Las Vegas—Zeke, Griffin, and this poor bastard whose own gun slipped from his hand to fall to the floor.

  “Our house has fallen.” He rubbed his eyes against the smoke that continued to thicken. “How could that happen?”

  Griffin moved up, turned the man around, and pushed him back out into the hall and toward the stairs. “We have to get out, Thomas. The authorities won’t be a problem, but burning to death will. Let’s go.”

  The authorities wouldn’t be a problem. That meant one thing. “Trinity wasn’t here, then,” I stated as I followed them, coughing again. We all were. If we weren’t so close to the front door, there wouldn’t have been enough oxygen to make it. If Trinity wasn’t here, he would definitely clear things with the Vegas authorities. They either worked for him and Eden House or he owned them, one way or the other.

  “No,” Griffin said as he continued to guide the dazed Thomas as we clattered down the stairs. “Neither is Goodman. They left for Miami. A meeting of the heads of the Houses.” So they were alive, and an alive Trinity was capable of covering up anything.

  “The rats always know when a ship is sinking,” Zeke grunted.

  “You think they knew this was coming?” I reached behind me to take Zeke’s wrist and pull him along faster. You’d think the man was meandering down to the kitchen for a snack.

  “No. I think the Universe sucks. The dicks are eating steak and drinking wine while their soldiers die.” Zeke saw the warning glance Griffin shot from him to Thomas, but I didn’t think Thomas heard a word as we passed out of the house into clean night air. He was young, so young that he had to be newly recruited. His survival had been nothing more than a fluke or maybe he’d hidden during the battle. If so, I didn’t blame him. He looked like he’d never fought a single demon, much less a horde of them.

  Outside we discovered there were a few more left, both demons and survivors like Thomas. The human survivors were only a handful, but they were holding their own for the moment. It was a very small and passing moment, though. They might have been fighting, but they were seconds away from being lunch meat. The three of us moved toward them and the ring of demons that surrounded them as Thomas fell to his knees and vomited. If they rebuilt Eden House here, I didn’t think he’d be a part of it. All the empathic or telepathic talent in the world doesn’t make you a fighter. Genes, a screwed-up childhood, or training did that, but sometimes none of the three worked. Thomas would never be a warrior and I also suspected Thomas would never sleep through the night again.

  But there were more urgent matters right now—to keep what remained of the House alive. The demons spotted us as we moved up behind them. The circle opened as half of them scattered to face us, while the other half moved in on the other six survivors. I aimed the MP5 at the two demons rushing me when Solomon appeared between us.

  “Stop!” He was in human form as always, but his voice was anything but. It was the roar of a lion—the largest and most lethal one on the plains.

  The demons hesitated, but the next thundering “Go!” left nothing but wisps of murky vapor floating in the air. Solomon turned to me. “I didn’t do this.”

  I scrubbed the rest of the demon blood from my face with the sleeve of my shirt. “You think I care? You think whether or not you did makes a difference? Do you think I even believe you?” I checked my clip automatically and avoided grim gray eyes. You could’ve even said they were sympathetic . . . if you were that gullible. I never had been. I couldn’t afford to be. “Because we both know if you had a reason to take out Eden House, you would.”

  “You think the Light is my reason.” He stepped closer, close enough to rest a hand on my arm. I heard Zeke growl, but Griffin must’ve held him back. “I’m more subtle in my tactics. Mass slaughter’s not my way. Murder isn’t my way. I’m different than the rest. I have control. I would not do this.”

  “What about Eligos?” I demanded as the warm thumb rubbed the tender skin on the underside of my arm.

  “He could . . . easily, but,” he added with obvious reluctance, “I don’t know that he did. I’ve heard nothing about a plan to destroy Eden House. All know this is my territory. No one beneath me would attempt anything like this without consulting me first. With my equals, I think I would have heard rumors. Gossip is a minor sin after all. We embrace it. This may have come from above.”

  “There are demons above you and Eli besides the big guy?” I pulled from his grip, but not as quickly as I should have. I couldn’t deny the warmth felt good against my skin. “I’m surprised you’d admit it.”

  “We have brothers who couldn’t come to Earth without setting the ground to flame beneath each foot-step. Whose gaze would kill anything it fell on.” His lips curled cynically. “Once far above archangels, now princes in Hell.”

  “And you’re still waiting on the promotion.” I shoved my gun in my bag. I could hear the distant wail of sirens.

  “A half million souls wouldn’t get me there.” The sirens were closer. “I’ll find out what I ca
n.” He was gone as unexpectedly as he came. The sirens were closer. Our vanishing act wasn’t as darkly mystical as Solomon’s had been. Ours was more of the piling into my car, spinning in a circle, and peeling out of the driveway. I took my boys and the rest of the survivors ran to cars of their own. Trinity could deal with the explanation of the dead bodies—if he had to bother to explain at all. Eden House had tentacles in all levels of government, local and federal. For all I knew, they’d invented the concept of government . . . they or Lucifer.

  The flames flickered in my rearview mirror, reminding me of all the times we’d burned Solomon’s club to the ground. Things come and things go, but one thing remained constant:

  Fire consumed it all.

  Chapter 12

  They had been mostly dead when Griffin and Zeke had gotten to the House, their brothers and sisters in arms, Griffin told me that night while we’d cleaned our slashes and slices. He’d told me while Zeke had said nothing at all—not since we’d left the ruins of Eden House. They’d lost another home. They’d realized it was gone when Trinity had found out about their bringing outsiders into Eden House business—their “calling” from his point of view. But knowing it and seeing it burn before you, that was different. And knowing it and seeing those you’d fought side by side with for years die nearly to the man, that was so beyond different, and it had hit Zeke hard. A dead baby, dead companions . . . it was a lot to lose in such a short lifetime. Only twenty-five years old, and Zeke had already seen so much death—and considered himself the cause of a part of it. The fall of Eden House was pain all in itself and a painful reminder of what had happened in that bathtub ten years ago.