The Grimrose Path t-2 Read online

  Souls were a McDonald’s hamburger, but killing for sheer butchery alone was an all-day ride at the amusement park. This demon was going for the loop-to-loop roller coaster all the way. It was Sunday and the lot was closed, but he had lured some dumb-ass tourist lost from the main strip into the lot. The road to Hell is paved with a lot of things . . . some of them Hyundais. I sighed and hopped the rope that acted as an imaginary barrier between sidewalk and lot to follow the two men inside the tiny two-cubicle office. The shades were down. In Vegas, winter or summer, the shades were always down or that purple couch you bought six months ago would now be lavender, and a pale lavender at that.

  Rather the same shade as the face of the tourist who was panicked and struggling to escape the one hand that held him by the neck. He was bent backward over a desk, his flailing arms knocking papers and salesman of the year awards onto the floor, and sometimes . . . just once in a while, you did get annoyed with the gullible. But you were more annoyed with one damn stupid demon who had set up shop literally six blocks from your territory. A human had been running this place three days ago, a potbellied pig-shaped man with a comb-over and enough nose hair to trim into bonsai trees. That alone marked him as nondemon, but he was gone now and a demon had moved into his place.

  Demons were so easy to spot it wasn’t even close to a challenge. This one had shiny blond hair, soulful brown eyes, not one but two dimples, and he threw off sex appeal by the bucketfuls—plus a manly I-could-be-your-best-bro, bro. He would appeal to men, women, and little old ladies. His charisma covered the spectrum. As I had made this body, so did demons make theirs. And they always liked theirs bright and shiny as a new penny. It was bait after all, part of the lure.

  “Six blocks.” I pulled my gun, a Smith & Wesson 500, from the holster in the small of my back. That’s why I kept my T-shirt loose. To cover the toys. “You set up your perch here”—I waved my other hand at the room around us—“sniffing for the innocent, the unwary, and the idiotic like this poor schmuck, and you do it six blocks from my place. My home. My territory.” He gaped at me. While I hadn’t bothered to find out about him before now, neither had he bothered to do the same regarding me—a little sloppy on my part, a little fatal on his. The sloppiness stopped now. I blew his head off before he had time to blink his eyes or blink back to Hell.

  He shimmered for a second into a man-sized brownish-green lizard with dragon wings, dirty glass teeth, a once-narrow but now-shattered reptilian head, and oozing eye sockets. The Smith had taken care of that. I doubt his eyes had been that same soft and soulful brown anyway. Then he was a pool of black goo on the worn carpet of the office, and while I felt for the cleaning lady, I had security tapes to wipe, a tourist to toss out on the street, and a gym to get to before all the elliptical trainers were taken. The tourist rolled to the floor, gurgled, and passed out either from lack of oxygen or lack of intestinal fortitude (balls for the more succinct of us). I wasn’t disappointed. A little judgmental, but not disappointed. It would actually make things easier on me.

  “Good old what’s-his-name. I’m surprised he lived to this millennium.” The voice came from behind me. A familiar one, not in a good way either. I looked over my shoulder to see Eligos—“Call-me-Eli,” he would always say with a grin that would suck the oxygen out of a room and half the brain cells out of your head. If you were human. Truly human, not just temporarily human. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t tell he was something to see all the same. Damned and damn hot, what a combo. He was also very probably the smartest demon I’d come across—what Hollywood likes to call a triple threat. Demons themselves were afraid of Hollywood, the only place where humans were more frightening than any Hell-spawn.

  “You can’t even remember his name?” I kept the gun loose and easy in my grip and blew a curl that had escaped my ponytail holder out of my eyes. “Some brotherly love there.”

  “Would you have me sing ‘Danny Boy’?” He was sitting on the other desk, one knee up, chin propped in his hand, his hazel eyes cheerful—if bright copper and green could be called hazel. “I have an amazing singing voice. I could’ve been Elvis. But I did eat him, so six of one, half a dozen of the other. You always have to be specific with the trades. Famous singer . . . good. Famous singer who doesn’t swell to the size of Shamu on fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches . . . better. But humans aren’t very detail oriented. Short attention span. They’re ‘Tomorrow is another day.’ Yadda yadda yadda.” He switched from leaning forward to leaning back and locked his hands across his stomach. “But all beside the point. I want to talk to you, Trixa.”

  “Your attention span isn’t all that great either, Eli, or do you remember what happened to the last demon I ‘talked’ to?” I wasn’t talking about the one I’d just blown away. He’d barely been worth breaking stride for. I was talking about Solomon, my brother’s murderer.

  He smiled, so flawless and white that an orthodontist would’ve fallen to the floor and genuflected before him and then no doubt offered him a blow job. Male or female, it wouldn’t matter. Humans are slaves to their hormones and no one manipulated hormones like demons. “Oh, I remember. I’ll remember that for all eternity. A: You made me piss a pair of Armani jeans that I was quite fond of. And B: You gave me the challenge that will occupy me to the end of time. Or the end of you, whichever comes first. It was worth losing the Light to you païen for that. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been challenged? Not since the Fall.” He shrugged and waffled a hand. “And even then, eh, we knew it was coming. Truthfully, I didn’t care if we ruled in Heaven or not. I just wanted to mix it up. Make a little trouble.” The smile was even brighter. “Because, Trixa, sweetheart, trouble is the only thing that makes existence bearable.”

  I’d promised the Light, an artifact from even before païen time, to Eli if he verified that the demon I’d suspected killed my brother was the real deal. He delivered. I didn’t. I lied. Sue me. I’m a trickster. I lie, cheat, steal. . . . It all comes with the name. Although I did it typically to show a few humans the error of their wicked ways, make them a little better, and hopefully a whole lot smarter. But Eli hadn’t known that at the time. The same as everyone else, he’d thought me human. But when it all went down—the taking of the Light, an unbreakable shield that would protect païen from Heaven and Hell, neither of which much cared for us, and the passing of Solomon—Eli had seen little Trixa in a brand-new way. When I’d finished with Solomon, before he melted to the black of liquid sin, he’d been in so many pieces, it looked like it had been raining demon parts. I’d shape-changed my heart out on that one—not that I had a heart in regard to Kimano’s killer. But I had been something to see and be. Bear. Wolf. Fox. Spider. Crow. Dragon. Shark. All in one. And as I’d told Solomon then, when ranked, it went something like this: gods, then tricksters, and then a damn sight lower . . . demons. I’d told him and I’d proved it.

  And Eli had been part of the audience.

  As far as he knew, I was still trickster, shape-shifter, all that had made Solomon look as if he’d fallen into a wood chipper. I had my shielding against empathic and telepathic probes to keep Eli thinking I remained all that I’d been. I might be semihuman, but I’d die before I lost that last defense. I’d lost my offensive abilities for a while, but nature makes sure every creature keeps their defensive ones until there’s nothing left to defend. It was a fortunate thing too. While angels had telepathy, and a host of other annoying habits, demons had empathy. It made it so much easier to trade for a soul when you could feel exactly what a person desired.

  I needed to keep Eli believing I was a trickster at the top of her form, because while the ranking went gods, tricksters, demons . . . humans were far enough below a high-level demon like Eli that you’d need binoculars to see them. I still had my trickster mind, but I had a vulnerable ninety-nine percent human body and that made things more difficult.

  “Fine. If you want trouble”—I checked my watch—“I can spare five minutes. That should give me
time to kill you, wipe the tapes, and maybe browse for a new car while I’m at it.” I smiled. I doubted I was too impressive a sight right then. I was an explosion of messy waves and curls anchored at the crown of my head with a ponytail holder. No makeup. The shirt that snarky Leo had had made for me that said SLAYER NOT LAYER on the front in the same bright red as my sweatpants, and a pair of beat-up sneakers. But Eli wasn’t seeing me now; he was seeing me then, and I had that going for me for a few months at least.

  “Oh, I want trouble.” His eyes darkened and it wasn’t with anger. Some serial killers had horrific childhoods that had tangled sexual and homicidal urges into one black, strangling noose. Demons had only needed that one spat with Daddy to get them there. “But it’ll have to be another time. I want to talk to you about some demons.” He straightened, turning serious . . . as serious as Eli came anyway. “Dead demons. Quite a few dead demons.”

  I tapped the barrel of my gun against my leg. “Really?” Now there was the best news I’d heard all day. “You want to throw a party at my place? I’ll even throw in an open bar for the occasion, because, sugar, I am that excited about it. How many demons are we talking about? Fifty? Because I can do a theme party. El Día de la Muerte de los Demonios. Death of Demons Day. Like Cinco de Mayo only with piñatas that have little horns and forked tails.”

  “Cute. You’re so adorable when you’re tearing apart my rivals and blathering on about something to which you have no utter fucking clue.” He smiled again. This time the white teeth had turned to the mouthful of smoky quartz fangs. “But that’s fine. I’m happy to have this conversation later. Maybe I’ll go out and occupy the time by burning down a church. Barbecuing the faithful. I always enjoy that. A big side of coleslaw and I’ll be in hog you-know-where.” At the last word, he pointed a finger skyward and mock fired it.

  Technically, that was Heaven’s problem, not mine, but despite the lying, cheating, and stealing part, I did have a conscience. Most tricksters did, as much as we’d deny it. That, combined with Eli not being in the mood for a little verbal sparring, was unusual enough to pique my interest.

  I sat on the other desk and rested my feet on the large belly of the still-unconscious tourist. “Okay, grumpy hooves. I’ll give you those five minutes. Better yet, I’ll actually listen to you instead of killing you during them, because I’m sweet as cotton candy that way.” I checked my watch again and snapped my own fingers. “Go.”

  And go he did. It wasn’t fifty demons who had died. It wasn’t even a hundred. That wouldn’t be that unusual. Demons killed païen for sport and tricksters killed demons because of it. All païen weren’t tricksters. There were vampires, wolves (werewolves to the fictionally inclined), nymphs, sprites, boggles, revenants, trolls, chubacabra, pukas, and thousands more. Some could take a demon and some couldn’t. So, if a hundred demons died in the past few years, that would be normal.

  Nine hundred and fifty-six in six months was not normal.

  I tapped my feet on the unconscious man’s belly and watched it ripple for a second while I processed the information. “All right. I see your point. Someone has been eating their Wheaties, taking their vitamins, and chugging a whole lot of Red Bull on top of that.” Inside I had more of a “holy shit, the sky is falling—don’t let the demon see you sweat” attitude going on. Something that could do that... “Maybe Upstairs has decided to do some old-fashioned smiting of the wicked and wanton. Let’s face it, you are both.”

  His teeth became human again as the smile became smug. “True. Wicked and wanton and I stand by my record placing in the top ten in my particular region of Hell. But, no. Not even in the War—or the Sacred Scuffle, Police Action, Hallowed Hoedown, take your pick—we didn’t lose a third so many. Who do you think was most likely to rebel? The holiest of the holy? The Precious Moments Angels? The simpering weaklings who were no better than fluffy baby ducks with halos?” He snorted. “No. We were the warriors. God’s Righteous Fury. The Smiters, sweetheart, not the Smitees. Granted, we did pick up a slew of messenger angels, watcher angels—the minimum-wage pigeons who just did what they were told to do. And at that moment Lucifer was talking the loudest and God was letting the angels make their own choice. So we ended up with some weak-minded fluffy ducks after all. Like him.” He jerked his head at the stain on the floor. “But even Daffy there, to lose more than nine hundred of him in six months? That is...” He shook his head and slid on a pair of sunglasses. “I don’t know what that is. No one seems to.”

  I still kept my gun out as he slid down from the desk and headed for the door. Demons, higher-level demons like Eligos, moved faster than humans did. While I’d given myself an Olympic-conditioned human body when creating it, Olympic or not, it was still human . . . and five pounds heavier. “It’s odd, impressive, and, all right, a little more than freaky, but why should I care? Whatever this is could kill every demon in Hell and it’s not going to get my ovaries in a twist. There’s a huge amount of ‘I don’t care’ in this general area.” I waved my free hand around me. “You kill my kind. I kill yours. This seems like a good thing for me and mine.” I wasn’t that stupid. If someone or something out there could do what Eli said, it was bad, bad news, because who knew when your kind might be . . .

  “Next,” Eli finished for me as he opened the door, a few blond hairs glittering in the dark brown of his hair, and looked back over his shoulder. Posed rather. Demons did like the hot rides they’d created to be admired. “I don’t need to be an angel. I don’t need telepathy to read that thought. I only have to know how smart you are. And that’s almost as smart as you think.” He grinned. “Nice T-shirt, by the way. Can’t wait to prove it wrong.”

  The door closed and I slowly holstered my gun. Almost a thousand demons in six months.

  Not in my best year ever. While I didn’t care about the dead demons—no crying over spilt sociopaths—I did wonder what this thing might do if demons started to bore it. I made a mental list of anything and everything I knew of throughout history, mine and the world’s, that could do something like this.

  It was a very short list.

  I went on to my workout. Dead demons didn’t make exercise and conditioning unnecessary. An unknown creature making those dead demons made it only more necessary. Afterward I ran home to take a shower. I’d come to find out that some humans had the capacity to tolerate more annoyance and flat-out brutal torture than I’d ever given them credit for. . . . Having to genuinely earn your muscle—that was probably one of the most annoying things that I’d come across.

  Give them credit? I was one of them now as much as I dragged my feet admitting it, trying to deny it with that minuscule one percent that wasn’t human. The second I forgot that I was now exactly what I appeared to be would be the second a demon would do to me what I’d done to so many of them.

  Either way, human, trickster or both, I saluted Homo sapiens, respected them more than I ever had, but the gym shower? Even I had to draw the line somewhere. I kicked ass either with claws, paws, or one helluva fashionable boot, but you couldn’t convince me that mold didn’t have its own gods and demons, its own tricksters and unspeakable monsters. I know one clump bristled at me the first and last time I’d checked out the utilities. I recognized evil when I saw it. I saw it that day on seventies-era avocado green tile and some evil you simply had to walk away from. My bathroom was minutes away. I’d wait. And I’d gotten ridiculously fond of soap that smelled of oranges and felt like silk against my skin. I’d been human so many times throughout my life, but this one . . . this one . . . It had really taken. I wasn’t scared of much, but that came close to doing it.

  Four more years. Who would I be then?

  Me. I’d still be me. Tricking and laughing my way through life as always. Nothing was going to change that. I’d said that the past ten years. I could keep telling myself the same thing as long as I had to.

  When I made it home, the closed sign was still on the door. I grumbled as I unlocked the door. Maybe Leo in his god days
could make gold coins fly out his ass, but I knew the value of a hard-earned or stolen buck. It was two in the afternoon now and he hadn’t opened the place when I’d left? What was he thinking? I was surprised we didn’t have a few of our regulars going into DTs right there on the sidewalk.

  Opening the door loudly, I made sure to close it more so behind me. There’s no point in being pissed off if there’s no way to share it. But before I had the chance, besides the door slamming, someone said, “You look like you were kicked out of a wet T-shirt contest.” There was a pause. “I didn’t know you could get kicked out of those.”

  Zeke. Straightforward tell-me-the-truth-and-I’ll-tell-you-no-lies Zeke. Because lying was too much of a bother for him and if you lied to him, well, he’d probably just shoot you. He was sitting at one of the tables eating a pizza. Double cheese, pepperoni, sausage, mushroom, peppers, olives, and a cardiologist on call. Eating it in front of me. And there were bags . . . bags and bags in front of the table, full of garlic bread and cheese sticks from the smell of it. The exquisite smell that put the plumeria-soaked breezes of Hawaii to shame. That was worse than the wet T-shirt remark. I narrowed my eyes at him and dripped on the floor as he chewed and swallowed a bite. “You’re . . . puddle-y.” He looked at his Eden House partner across the table from him. “Is puddle-y a word?”

  Griffin quirked his lips. “I think fewer moisture-related comments and more eating might be a good idea.”

  Red eyebrows pulled into a scowl. “You are not the boss of me.” Slightly lighter red hair was pulled into a short ponytail . . . dry, not cascading buckets like mine. Zeke’s shirt was a plain gray long-sleeve T-shirt and his jeans were faded. What he wore didn’t make much difference to him. As long as he had a jacket to cover his gun, he was good to go. Fashion didn’t appear on his top-ten list of priorities.