Read Trick of the Light Online
Authors: Rob Thurman
Trick of the Light (9 page)
And then there was the demon. . . . Picture a male model with empty eyes and a smile as bright as a thousand diamonds—or as predatory as the flashing teeth of a personal injury lawyer. Not all lawyers were demons, but let’s say there was a fairly high turnover among the Vegas ones, thanks to Eden House and an endless supply of shotgun slugs.
“Hurry up and run so I can start killing,” Zeke told the girl impatiently. He’d pulled out the Colt and pointed it at our prey.
The girl stood frozen. Even in the low light I could see the beat of her pulse, rapid against the pale skin of her throat . . . the beat of her starving heart. She wanted, so badly, all the wrong damn things. I stood, braced the stock of the shotgun against my shoulder, and said, “Listen to him, girl. Try helping others instead of helping yourself. Take your shallow dreams and run to something better, because there
is
better. Go!” She didn’t move.
“Run!”
There was a flutter of green silk, fake, and the glitter of diamonds, also fake, and she was gone . . . running past us, out of the alley, and disappearing around the corner. I hoped she believed me. It was true. There was better. She only had to open her eyes and see it.
is
better. Go!” She didn’t move.
“Run!”
There was a flutter of green silk, fake, and the glitter of diamonds, also fake, and she was gone . . . running past us, out of the alley, and disappearing around the corner. I hoped she believed me. It was true. There was better. She only had to open her eyes and see it.
The demon’s smile didn’t waver. “Eden House dogs. You . . .”
Zeke shot him between the eyes with three consecutive shots that came so fast, they almost sounded like one. “They always want to talk.” He lowered the gun. “Eat your still-beating heart. Skin you alive. Strangle you with your own intestines. Blah-blah. Boring.”
The head of the human demon had gone misshapen. Hollow point rounds for maximum damage. Zeke liked his toys to do the job first time around. This time he’d nailed the demon before it even had time to change back to its true form. Scales rippled across its slack face, but it poured downward into a black puddle before it could change any further. No brain, no demon.
Easy. It hadn’t been worth taking off my boots and putting on my sneakers. Hell, it wasn’t even worth putting on deodorant in case I had to run and sweat.
But that’s when we found out why the demon hadn’t lost its smile.
I spotted them first . . . on the roof. Five of them and they weren’t bothering with human disguises. Bat wings thrashed and they dived at us, transparent teeth bared. Three of them were black, with ebony scales that sucked in the light. You didn’t see that color often, and it was never a good time when you did. The other two were a sickening, swamp green-brown, more of what I was used to. They weren’t armed with weapons. With their teeth, speed, and claws seven inches long, they were already equipped. And all those teeth, all those talons, they had one target.
“Zeke!” I shouted it and ran, but Griffin was ahead of me. Nothing against Griffin, but I was one fast runner, damn fast. It didn’t matter—he was motivated. Unfortunately, that motivation didn’t stop Zeke from going down. Not that he didn’t take some down with him, because he did—popped two in their heads as they fell from the sky on top of him. It was damn good shooting and from the surprised flare in their red and yellow eyes, unexpected from a human.
Cool, precise, without a hint of nerves. That was Zeke. I doubted he felt his nerves dance with anything other than annoyance when the claws of the third black demon sank into his upper chest and arm, pinning him to the ground and keeping him from reloading.
Griffin stumbled.
Shit. Zeke might not get nerves, but he felt something other than annoyance, all right. He felt pain. And thanks to being an empath, Griffin was feeling it too. Everything his partner felt, he was feeling right along with him. And that was sweet in a bonding, “I feel your pain . . . no, really, I
feel
your pain” kind of way, but it wasn’t any use to us now. I grabbed the back of his jacket and kept him upright as we ran. I also gave him a shake. “You have to have some control over your empathy,” I snapped. “Use it! You’re no help to him like this.”
feel
your pain” kind of way, but it wasn’t any use to us now. I grabbed the back of his jacket and kept him upright as we ran. I also gave him a shake. “You have to have some control over your empathy,” I snapped. “Use it! You’re no help to him like this.”
Zeke had his good hand wrapped around the neck of the demon and was holding those haunted-house, shattered-window teeth away from his own throat. I couldn’t see the blood on his chest, black was good at hiding that, but I could see a trickle of it run from the corner of his mouth, the red of it on his bared teeth. I didn’t need to hear the accompanying wheeze from Griffin to know the demon’s claws had at least nicked Zeke’s lung.
I stopped running and fired at the black one squatting on top of Zeke. I missed as the head darted forward with uncanny speed—physics-defying speed. Demons were like people. They were all different. Some were fast; some were slow. Some were smart, some not so much, and some beyond idiotic. It was our bad luck to get a smart, fast one; our worse luck that I underestimated him.
But the chest is a bigger target and I was smart and fast myself. I fired the second barrel of the shotgun and hit him dead-on. He was thrown off Zeke into the back of the alley. The talons must not have felt any better coming out than they had going in, because Zeke arched up off the asphalt and this time Griffin did fall. I used one hand and the support of a knee to reload the shotgun, and I used the other hand to slap Griffin’s face hard enough to leave an instant hot, red hand-print. Then I took a handful of his shirt, pulled him to his feet, and pushed him against the alley wall. The push was as hard as the slap and I saw his eyes focus on me. “Griff, you don’t turn it off now and Zeke dies. He
dies
. Turn it off!”
dies
. Turn it off!”
His mouth tightened and he closed his eyes for a split second. His skin was still pale except for the red blotch, but when he lifted the lids, the pupils of his eyes were now normal. Before they had been black with only the thinnest ring of blue; now the blue was back. Dark with rage but back. So was his control, and we’d need it to get out of this trap we’d so stupidly hopped, skipped, and jumped our way into. I couldn’t remember all the times I’d been underestimated because I was a woman, but I could count the times I’d underestimated demons. This would be number two and there was no way I was letting it turn out the way the first time had. Not again. Zeke wasn’t going to die; Griff wasn’t going to . . . none of us were.
“Off?” I asked as one of the brown demons headed for us, crisp air purling under its wings
“It’s off,” Griffin answered grimly as he turned and fired. The demon fell, one wing shredded. It wasn’t off, the empathy, not really. I could see that in the bone white line of his jaw, but he had it under sufficient control to pull a trigger and that was good enough. I hit the other demon swooping at us, this time in the head. A slow one. Good. I deserved a slow one. I also deserved a bubble bath and hot chocolate laced with butter-scotch schnapps and topped with whipped cream. But I didn’t have that. What I did have was a one-winged green demon and the black one I’d shot off Zeke. Neither of them looked anywhere near as warm and fuzzy as chocolate and schnapps.
Zeke was pushing up to one elbow, ignoring his own gasps for air as he reloaded using a speed-loader. His chest heaved on one side and didn’t move on the other. Pure mission Zeke. Air? Only wimps need air. Just give me something to shoot. It looked like the black demon was going to give him his wish. I was wrong. It passed over its first victim and headed straight for me, wings working furiously. I didn’t have time to reload and I’d never played baseball.
There’s always time to learn.
I tossed the shotgun, caught the painfully warm end of the barrel, and swung.
This time I got his head with a crash that destroyed the shotgun’s stock. Beautifully polished wood splintered and shattered. And all in all, it was about as effective as hitting him with a flyswatter. He did a better job of it with me than I had with him. As I went down, I saw the green demon back up and head for the wounded of the pack. Griffin was right between the two of us, but while Zeke might be almost as ass kicking as he thought he was, with his collapsed lung he was also bleeding and breathing . . . not so good.
“Get Zeke!” I yelled right before the demon fell on me like the MGM Grand and Caesar’s all rolled into one. I was good, I was fast, but the human body is only capable of so much. I felt the breath jolt out of my lungs, the rough asphalt scrape through my jacket and shirt as we slid up the alley floor like the after-math of a motorcycle wreck. Road rash from Hell . . . literally . . . and it hurt. Damn, did it hurt. It might’ve even come close to how the demon felt when the barrel of my Smith punctured its amber eye. There was a scream of a thousand tortured souls, which he’d probably personally recruited, and then, after I emptied six rounds into its skull, there was silence. Blissful silence.
Then I was covered in disgustingly warm black goo and the emergency door slammed open. A bouncer was framed there. He had no neck and from the steroid acne he had, probably balls the size of raisins. “Something going on out here?”
I pushed up on my elbow, the skin of my back a wildfire of pain at the motion. The green demon was gone. Either Griffin or Zeke had nailed it. Zeke was flat on his back while Griffin, who’d stripped off his jacket and wadded it to apply pressure to his partner ’s chest, rapped orders into the cell phone cradled between shoulder and jaw. There was blood on his hands, two shotguns on the alley floor, and a gun in my fist.
“No. Not a thing.” I holstered the Smith slowly and painfully. “We’re good, studly. Thanks for asking.”
“Well . . . okay, then. Keep it down.” Dull, mean brown eyes, already half crossed, crossed further, and he slammed the door behind him, the only man I would actually
encourage
to trade in his soul. Cerebral cortexes were highly underrated in this town. “Evolution,” I groaned as I sat up all the way. “What a myth.”
encourage
to trade in his soul. Cerebral cortexes were highly underrated in this town. “Evolution,” I groaned as I sat up all the way. “What a myth.”
“Trixa, you’re hurt.” Griffin had let the phone fall, disconnected, and I knew Eden House’s own personal ambulance was on the way. They had a medical unit at their headquarters and better doctors and equipment than the local hospitals had. They’d take care of Zeke. He’d be all right, be pissing off Griff and shooting demons again in no time. He would be, because life without Zeke—sociopathically efficient, endearingly psychotic Zeke—wasn’t going to happen. It simply wasn’t.
I knelt beside him, my own bloody hands cupping his face. I’d made it there and touched his chest without remembering the motion of it. Much as I’d done with Kimano. “Kit, you got to use your big gun. I can practically smell the testosterone on you.”
I called him Kit, a baby fox, back when he was fifteen for his fox-colored hair. I’d almost forgotten the nickname in the ten years that had passed.
His eyes, that pale green, were hazy but managed to find me. “Kit.” He dragged in several wet breaths. “When . . . do I make . . . full-grown fox?”
“When you know thyself,” I said solemnly.
“What the hell’s that mean?” Each word was slow and said with bloody lips.
“Ask the fortune cookie company. It came with last night’s takeout.” I gave him a smile, the best one I could manage when we were surrounded by shadows and the smell of copper and garbage.
A bloody hand gripped my shoulder and my attention. “You’re hurt,” Griffin repeated.
I already could hear the siren in the distance. Eden House didn’t waste any time and they couldn’t find me here. It wouldn’t be good for Zeke and Griffin and it wouldn’t be much better for me. “Superficial. Skin’s strictly optional, right?” I already had my own cell phone out. “I’ll call Leo. He can take me to the ER.” I stood, refusing to bite my lip, but the “Shitshitshit” I didn’t bother to hold back. I backed up toward the alley mouth as I made the call, watching the guys—
my
guys. I watched as Zeke closed his eyes, but kept breathing. He kept breathing.
my
guys. I watched as Zeke closed his eyes, but kept breathing. He kept breathing.
“We walked right into it,” Griffin said with dark disgust. He looked down at Zeke and back at me. “Black demons. High-level demons. What were they doing here? Besides making us look like amateurs. Like complacent assholes. We screwed up.”
“No. We
fucked
up.” It wasn’t a word I used often, but the situation called for it. “There’s a difference. We won’t do it again.” High-level demons like Solomon. Well, perhaps not like Solomon, no one was quite like him, but higher than the usual demons we dealt with. “Like Solomon.” I couldn’t make myself believe that was a coincidence. I stopped at the corner. “Call me and let me know.” I didn’t need to elaborate. Griffin knew. Then I rounded the corner and walked away, sticking to the shadows to hide the damage to my clothes and back . . . waiting for Leo.
fucked
up.” It wasn’t a word I used often, but the situation called for it. “There’s a difference. We won’t do it again.” High-level demons like Solomon. Well, perhaps not like Solomon, no one was quite like him, but higher than the usual demons we dealt with. “Like Solomon.” I couldn’t make myself believe that was a coincidence. I stopped at the corner. “Call me and let me know.” I didn’t need to elaborate. Griffin knew. Then I rounded the corner and walked away, sticking to the shadows to hide the damage to my clothes and back . . . waiting for Leo.
No, I wasn’t going to let Griff and Zeke follow Kimano into death.
Never.
Chapter 5
Hospitals were not fun.
My family and I tended to be completely healthy up until the second we were dead; we went out old as hell and wicked as they came. It was a nice quality; saved on health insurance. So this was my first visit to one of the places, and hopefully it would be the last. I waited four hours to get the dirt and bits of asphalt washed out of the raw stretch that was my back by a nurse who thought “gentle touch” was the slogan for some sort of toilet paper. Leo sat with me the entire time, alternately shaking his head and muttering, “This is what happens,” and eyeing a blond doctor walking by with intriguing shadows in her violet eyes. Secrets. Leo was a sucker for a secret. For that matter so was I, but certainly not now.
“Thanks for the ‘I told you so,’ Grandma. Pain pills. You have the pain pills?” I asked as I slowly slid on the scrub top the nurse had given me to replace my shredded one.
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