The Grimrose Path t-2

by Rob Thurman

  I disconnected the call on Leo’s further happy news of, “We’ll give you two minutes.” I was glad he had faith I was already in position, but when you can’t bitch back about the sudden change of plans and vagaries of fate, nearly everything annoys you . . . faith included. Scanning the area quickly, I found what I needed and in precisely two minutes, I smashed the fire extinguisher into the display case. However loud it might have been, it was completely overshadowed by the explosions I heard outside. They sounded like entertaining distractions. I wished I were the one making them and not the one carrying an artifact that had surprised me by not weighing as much as a concrete block, but weighing as much as two or three concrete blocks.

  I made it through the bird room, RIP, and came up against a closed door identifying that the Dino Lab lay behind it. Closed and locked. This was the moment when your average thief would’ve become more irritated, but I wasn’t your average thief. To me, that’s when it became interesting. Let’s face it, if you’re not challenged by your job, if it doesn’t get your adrenaline pumping, your brain cycling into overdrive, then your job isn’t worth doing.

  The Roses? Stealing a potentially worlds-saving device? That . . . that was worth doing.

  And picking an ordinary lock, such as this one—a simple pin-and-tumbler design—wasn’t technology. Getting through it would be more like solving a puzzle or falling down the stairs in precisely the right way. If it took me a minute, I’d kiss Eli’s ass. Putting the Namaru mold on the floor, I lifted my shirt a few inches and retrieved the pick and torsion wrench from my back pocket. After giving the pins a subtle but nasty raking with the pick, I turned the small wrench. It was as easy as actually having the key, only more rewarding. Picking up the stone block again was less rewarding as my muscles complained and the scraped skin on my arms echoed that complaint before going straight to pain as the barely new skin tore in what felt like three or four spots. But all in all, I was maintaining a high level of job satisfaction and sheer fun as I passed through the lab, down the stairs, and burst out onto the first floor. From there it was past the insect zoo, which I cared for even less than the dead birds. Zoos are a prison and humanity the reason those prisons are necessary.

  I ran past the admissions desk and out the main entrance, which was unlocked, the steel mesh lifted as the security guard or guards had gone out to see what was exploding. It was cars. Four of them. That made sense. Four grenades in our trunk. Four cars blow up. I’d thought I was having a good time before. This was absolutely amazing—a party if ever there was one.

  The museum backed up to Exposition Boulevard, was cornered by Menlo, and was fronted by a green space with grass, several trees, and a narrow jogging path. Now added to all that greenery were several burning cars. It was a pity to scar a beautiful area, but exploding cars in the street could hurt someone who didn’t deserve it. The grass would grow again, if not shut behind glass; that was nature’s way.

  I saw two security guards by two of the cars. The other two bonfires were past three trees. I had to admit it was a great distraction except for all the light it put off. But in LA as in Vegas, it’s never dark anyway. And when you’re by several streets, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and a museum, you can take the word “night” out of the dictionary altogether. I was good at sticking to the shadows when I had to, but in this situation the shadows were scarce. I heard the shout behind me as I kept running. “Stop!” I wonder if that had ever worked. Did anyone the world over start to steal from a museum, get spotted, and then stop? Sorry, sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. Here’s your priceless Star of the Infinite Morning diamond back. Wait, let me rub off that smudge. There you go. Sparkly as ever. I’ll handcuff myself, no problem. Happy to help.

  I doubted it. They all most likely did what I did. Ran faster.

  The grass was cool under my feet and the damn Namaru block was getting heavier with every step I took, but I kept running. I saw our borrowed car come screeching across Menlo Avenue from the parking lot, causing two other cars to slam on their brakes to avoid a collision. I was almost there, almost home free . . . as long as they didn’t have guns. I snatched a glance over my shoulder.

  Ah, shit.

  I dived to the ground. I didn’t bother to try and protect the mold as I hit grass and it hit asphalt. Like all Namaru devices, it was virtually indestructible. It could protect itself. I could protect myself too, but I couldn’t make myself impervious to electricity. The wires from the Taser sailed over the top of me and the darts hit the street next to the weapon mold. It was almost exactly simultaneous to Zeke jumping out of the car with his gun pointed at the guards less than fifteen feet behind me—the innocent, if inconvenient, guards.

  “Kit, don’t,” I said on the end of a ragged pant for air.

  Griffin’s voice followed mine. “Think, Zeke. Think.” Think about what you’re doing, whom you’re facing, what the situation was and who we were in it. The guards were the good guys. Misguided, as we were trying to stop a danger they couldn’t imagine, but they were good nonetheless.

  “I’ve already thought,” came the reply, somewhat exasperated, the gun not wavering. “You two,” he said to the guards. “Go away. Now.”

  But good doesn’t always mean intelligent. It can mean brave and stubborn to the point of stupidity. Weren’t some of the greatest heroes in written history those who didn’t have the sense to say, What the hell was I thinking? Let’s wait until we have more men, spears, swords, and brain cells. Why are we even here? I could be home plowing the field and enjoying the nice spring day. The second guard wasn’t a plow-the-field type though. She was a hero. Only unlike other past heroes, she was going to live to tell about it.

  When Zeke fell beside me, his entire body rigid, he didn’t pull the trigger. He’d told the truth. He had thought. We should’ve had more faith in him. Zeke always knew right from wrong—it was the punishment area he had difficulties in, and you didn’t punish guards chasing a thief. Instead, he took the punishment himself, although he did manage to keep an irritated expression on his face as he went down, which is an achievement when you have that many volts passing through you.

  I grabbed my own gun, rolled over, sat up, and put a bullet in the ground twelve inches or so from the feet of the nearest guard. Ms. Hero. I hoped it made her think twice in the future. Do the right thing in the smart way. We needed heroes in the world, but heroes who didn’t look before leaping rarely lived long enough to pass on their heroic genes. Whether it would make her think in the future, I didn’t know, but it did make her think now. “I don’t think I can say it much better than my friend. Go away is good and now is perfect. So go.” Neither looked like a former marine, a cop moonlighting, or someone with a badge fetish but a psych profile that would keep you from serving up slushies, much less working in a field where you’re armed. They were two museum guards, plain and simple, and that let them back away from a no-win situation, because they were bright enough, the hero included, to know that a chunk of rock wasn’t worth dying for. Saving a life was, saving the world was, but a thing? An artifact? That wasn’t. Too bad I hadn’t stolen one of the dead birds instead. That would’ve made their decision go down a little easier.

  As they backed up, hands in the air, Leo and Griffin came out of the car. Leo took the artifact, Griffin took Zeke, and when everyone was back in the car, I followed. We were flying down Menlo before I could get the door shut. When I did, I checked the mirror to see the guards running after us, trying to get the license plate. Unfortunately for them they’d get nothing. Amateurs, which we weren’t, would know enough to remove the license plate in the parking lot. It wasn’t our car, but if they tracked down Zeke’s neighbors through it, they had no reason to take the fall for him and every reason to gleefully see him dragged to jail. It would be excuse enough for a block party.

  “Who stole the cars and drove them into the park?” I asked, using the cause of the entire uproar as a footstool as I reached back and took Zeke’s slack han
d.

  “I did. I keep in practice—as a certain trickster taught me.” Leo steered around one car and turned onto West Thirty-ninth, and proceeded to get us thoroughly buried in the city. “I blew them up as well. I did have to wrestle the grenades from Zeke, but it was worth it. Fireballs and stealing—it was very satisfying.”

  “I’m glad you’re having a good time.” If it weren’t for Zeke getting a small taste of sticking a fork in an outlet, I would be high on the experience myself. “Griff, how is he doing?”

  “He’s blinking. That’s something.” Thor remained unconscious, and Griffin had shoved him into the corner of the backseat. He also had Zeke’s gun in hand before placing it in his partner’s holster. It was Zeke’s favorite gun, a Colt Anaconda, and Griffin knew better than to leave it behind. Zeke cherished that phallic-boosting piece of metal beyond all measure. “Hey, partner, when you can move again, be glad we didn’t wait and try to break you out of jail later.” He hoisted him higher in the seat, and I felt a twitch of fingers captured by my hand. “I’d hate to see what you would’ve done if they’d tried a full-body cavity search on you. Or have to mess with Thor poofing out all the ill-tempered red-heads. With our luck you know one who would’ve been a pervert clown arrested for twisting his penis into balloon animals.”

  We took a corner at a speed that had Leo chuckling under his breath. I don’t think he’d had this much fun in years. A bit of Loki wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for Leo. After yet another corner, squeal of brakes, and blare of horn, Zeke was able to move his lips. He sounded as if he were shot up with novocaine, but he was understandable. “Being . . . good . . . sucks.”

  “No argument with you there.” I squeezed his hand and then let it rest on the seat beside him before patting his cheek. “But other than getting Tasered, it wasn’t bad. You helped rob a museum. Now how many people can say that? You’re practically a professional jewel thief.”

  “I don’t . . . wear jewelry.” He moved slowly and sat up straighter. If they didn’t kill you, Tasers were great for recovery time. “And fragging demons is better.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with killing demons, true,” I admitted, “but you have to widen your horizons. There’s more to life than demons.”

  “Things like this?” he asked dubiously, trying for a look behind us as the wail of a siren erupted. The police car had turned left off a cross street and slid right onto our bumper. The cops had either gotten notice of the museum incident over their radio and tracked us down in a matter of minutes—lucky but unlikely—or they had been waiting on that street with a looming ticket quota and had spotted Leo’s creative driving. It was certainly creative enough to be instantly noticed by anyone with a single law enforcement gene.

  “Things exactly like this.” I faced forward again and buckled up. I bounced slightly in the seat in anticipation as well. I had no choice. It was a car chase. There had been decades of American cinema devoted to the genre, and here was an opportunity to experience it. You had to live every moment as if death rode your bumper instead of the police. It made every moment irreplaceable—every one a perfect, brilliant jewel strung along the glittering gold chain of your life. “You can outrun them, can’t you, Leo? You being so much more technically adept than me.”

  “That’s a given. The question is, do you want the escape casualty free as that may take a few minutes more.” Leo jerked the steering wheel and we took another corner. This time he didn’t stick to the street. He took out a newspaper box, clipping it with the front bumper.

  “Without casualties would be nice, unless it’s someone mugging an old lady. Then you’re a free agent. Do what you have to do.” I braced my hands on the dashboard. “We should’ve switched. I love driving fast.”

  “Right. Then the only casualties would be us.” Leo drove the car between two rows of pumps at a gas station. I leaned out the window to flip off the cops. I had no problem with them personally, but I didn’t mind giving Leo more of a challenge. “Oh yes, that’s helpful,” he said. “Maybe you could moon them too. That’s a thought. That might actually scare them off.”

  “Ass.” I punched him hard enough in his ribs to have him grunting as the car left the station, bounced over the curb, and hit yet another cross street. This part of LA was full of them. It made car chases more interesting. But despite that and despite riding the sidewalk and nearly taking out a gas pump, Leo’s version of a shortcut, the cops stuck stubbornly to us.

  “That’s what I said. If you show them your ass . . .” I punched him again, turning the words into a pained hiss.

  I pushed at his shoulder and put a hand on the wheel. “That’s it. You had your chance. Switch places with me.”

  “My chance consisted of forty-five seconds? Hell, no.” This time he drove over the concrete curb in front of a liquor store and we were on yet another street, this time going the wrong way.

  “I find it disturbing that if we die in a fiery collision, Cronus will still make us his bitches,” Griffin said, ducking as Leo dodged oncoming headlights.

  “When Cronus does Armageddon, he likes to get it right.” I took my hand off the wheel, trying not to be greedy as Leo continued to weave the car around two more approaching ones. “Damning absolutely everyone, living or dead. Good or bad. Human or païen, and that means Thor the Indestructible too. If he’s ever sober enough to realize it.” That last thought gave me an idea, and moments later Griffin and Zeke had tossed a deadweight Thor out of the car. He tumbled across the street behind us and was wedged under the front of the cruiser as it hit him dead on. That stopped them. Thor was a big guy. A truck or SUV might have made it over him, but not a low-slung cop car. Right before both the car, lights flashing and siren screaming, and Thor disappeared in the distance behind us, I saw the beer can that remained clutched in his hand. He had one true love, but he was wholly devoted to it. You had to admire the dedication.

  “It’s nice to know he’s good for something besides stalking a women’s volleyball team and single-handedly supporting the Internet porn industry,” Leo said, seemingly without remorse for letting us turn his foster brother into a speed bump. It did solve two problems at once. It stopped the cop car, and we managed to get rid of Thor. If he were sober, he would choose self-destruction over helping Leo, and if he was passed out or drunk, he wouldn’t be any use. We’d been beyond blessed he’d been helpful at the museum. It had been a long shot, but with the limited time we had left, our only shot. As Leo had once said, Fortune rarely favors the fucked, but there were exceptions.

  “You’re sure he’s not dead?” Griffin asked. “I think one of the tires went over his head.”

  “Unfortunately I’m sure. That won’t give him a headache, much less kill him.” Leo had us on the I-10 in twenty minutes and heading home. Only then would he pull over and switch places with me. He had hogged the car chase, short though it was, but I didn’t blame him. I wouldn’t have given one of those up either. As I took over the driving, Leo took a much-deserved nap. Zeke was only minutes behind him. He had been Tasered, which was a good excuse, but he didn’t require one. Zeke was a napping fool, one after my own heart.

  “He didn’t need me to tell him what to do.”

  It was an hour later when Griffin spoke those words. It didn’t surprise me he was the only one other than I who was awake. When you’d been in a coma, that was nap enough for a while. “With the museum guards?” I said as I lowered the radio volume. “No, he didn’t. Zeke’s come a long way in the past few months, if you don’t count blowing up houses.”

  “He has. He knows why he is the way he is. Before he never knew whom to blame except himself. Now he knows better. Finding out what he was helps him deal with who he is.” Griffin exhaled. “I find out what I was and I can’t deal at all.”

  “If it had been the other way around, would you have held that against Zeke?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “No, of course not, so I shouldn’t hold it against myself. But it isn’t that ea
sy, is it?” He was slumped in the corner of the seat Thor had occupied before being unceremoniously rolled out. I couldn’t see much of him in the rearview mirror. Shadows within shadows. At that moment, it would’ve been the same in broad daylight.

  “Nothing worthwhile is easy, but remember, angels have only ever fallen. You’re the single one who has ever risen up. That makes you damn special whether you want to see it or not. For one moment you had all the memories of who you once were and you still turned your back on Hell. You chose who you are now, a life that might be shorter, a life without all the power, a life of doing good instead of destroying it. I keep saying you aren’t that demon and you’re not, but I have to give him credit. That demon made that choice with you. To stay you and to never be what he was again. In a way, he gave his life to let you live. Maybe we both shouldn’t think of ex-demon as an insult. Maybe we should see that only makes what he did that much more extraordinary.”

  The shadows moved and the tone lightened. “You think I’m extraordinary?”

  “Sugar, ordinary you are not. If you were, do you think I’d have spent so many years babying you?”

  “Is that what that was? I thought you were whipping me into shape Spartan style. . . . Shit! Watch out!”

  I jerked my attention from the mirror to what was in front of me, easily visible in the car’s headlights—too easily. It was the Apocalypse, wearing that same inside-out T-shirt, same new jeans, and with the same eyes that were abandoned wells littered with bones of the doomed and the damned. He was standing on the road fifty feet ahead of me. I had less than half a second to decide which would be worse: to swerve off the road and most likely flip the car or to hit him head-on. I chose head-on. That was the unknown. I might do some damage; I might not, but rolling the car was guaranteed injuries. This was an old car with no airbags and the seat belts were questionable at best. I had to make a choice, and I did.

  I chose wrong.