Rob Thurman - Grimrose path

"You from the South, girly? Tennessee? Alabama?" The eyes softened a fraction. "You have a way about you."

I smiled as I rested the gun on my knee. "Sugar, I'm from everywhere. There's no place in this world big enough to hold me." No yard with enough toys. No playground with enough swings. No amusement park with enough rides. No place I hadn't been. No place I wouldn't go. But that was the past and the future, intriguing physics theories aside. And right now the present was good enough for me.

An hour passed and I was telling the sarge about my favorite memory of Tennessee. "Honeysuckle," I said in dreamy remembrance, propping my chin in my hand. "On those humid summer nights where you can stand outside and there's no air, only honeysuckle. You can smell it; you can even taste it." The last time I'd been there, it had been so strong and thick everywhere that I was surprised even now people didn't smell it on my breath when I exhaled. No one could smell honeysuckle and not instantly become a kid again, tasting the nectar. There was nothing in the world that tasted quite like that. Not the best of wine or the sweetest fruit heavy on an orchard tree.

"That's home, through and through." He nodded. "Too damn cold in the winter and a tornado every day in the summer, but the honeysuckle nights I miss. I rightly do."

Zeke interrupted the nostalgia, calling from farther down the street, sitting to blend in as I was doing. Waiting for those three bastards to come play. Griffin had taken the other side of the street, buried in the homeless and street noise. "Trixa," Zeke snapped, "some guy is exposing himself to me. Only Griffin gets to do that."

Maybe we were lucky Griffin was on the other side of the street. He considered their personal life to be just that and not shouted down the street over people's heads. I choked back a laugh, because Zeke was trying to be good since this was my show. Most times he wouldn't mention the little annoyances of life and take care of them himself, which was rarely a pretty picture. "Did you tell him to stop?" I asked.

"Twice. Which are two more warnings than I normally give," came the exasperated reply.

I shrugged to myself. Sometimes the Zeke way was the right way-once again, not pretty, but still occasionally right. "Sounds like someone needs a lesson. You can be a trickster intern for the night."

After that I heard a grunt, a loud one to make it as far down as I was sitting. I didn't hear a silencer's muffled cough though, which was good, but better safe than sorry… "You didn't shoot him, did you?"

"No, I hit it with the butt of my gun." Considering the size Zeke's guns tended toward, that was one unfortunate flasher. "He's curled up and I can't see his dick anymore, but I heard a crunch. A nice, loud crunch. Is that enough of a lesson or should I go ahead and shoot him?"

He didn't know, truly didn't, and I could see why Griffin still tutored him in walking the line between the stark black and white of decision making. Who knew how long it would be before Zeke could actually see the gray instead of only guessing at it?

"What do you think?" I called back.

"That I should shoot him," he said promptly.

"No," I said with a loud sigh, and he heard it.

"Just a little?" he wheedled.

"No… unless the crunch wasn't sufficient and he tries it again. Then maybe. Now quiet down, Kit. You're making people a little nervous."

Sarge looked at me, squinting his eyes as some of the homeless began to move their scant belongings and themselves farther up or down the sidewalk away from Zeke. "You think, girly? That boy's not quite right in the head, now is he?"

"He's right in every way there is to be right," I said firmly. "And he's lived through battles and a war you couldn't imagine. You know the good men who do nothing and let evil thrive? He's a good man who does something and, trust me, evil will never thrive if he's in the area. He's better than I am and better than you. Understand?"

The man held up his hands. "Hold your horses. You sure don't look like brother and sister. He looking all Irish with that red hair and you looking, well, all kinds there is. Ain't meaning to step on any toes regarding family."

He was right. Zeke was my family, my brother, just as Griffin was. I'd lost my real brother, Kimano, years ago, and vengeance, while satisfying, couldn't bring him back. But life had given me two more. Not my guys, not my boys, but my brothers. For a loner trickster who usually led the most wandering of lives, who made the most temporary passing through or ending of your life, I was picking up strays like crazy. They were anchors to my kind, Mama would be the first to say. I looked down the street to see Zeke swiveling his red head back and forth with a "Hey, what?" puzzled expression as people moved away from him.

No, not anchors, Mama. They were wings. They had wings when they cared to show them and they were my wings. I'd thought I'd been blessed to have one brother. Now I was blessed to have two.

"If you're going to leave, then take the pervert with you," I heard Zeke demand. "His dick touched my gun. Now I'll have to take it to the free clinic to be tested. Do you know how hard that is to explain?"

Blessed was a strong word. Fortunate. I was fortunate to have two more.

"Especially when it's the third time?"

All right, family. It was everyone's burden to bear. And bear it I would… with the same grace and style with which I bore everything else.

"Does anyone have any goddamn hand sanitizer?"

My cell rang at just the moment I was considering taking the bat back from "Sarge" and using it on Zeke. Very good timing. Griffin was excellent at that. "What is Zeke doing?" he asked before I could say hello. "You're zapping me with waves of irritation like a leaky microwave. Zeke feels the same as always-his usual nice Zen level of vexation with the world in general, and since I normally can only read what you want me to, I have to guess he's also having a little fun with you." He didn't sound especially sympathetic. Amused was more like it. He dealt with Zeke's quirks every day and he did it with the grace and style I was beginning to shed like a winter coat.

"Zeke is being Zeke," I groaned. Since I was assuming his taking his gun to the free clinic was a joke, I added, "The more he develops a sense of humor, the more worried I get. It scares even my kind."

I heard the grin in Griffin's voice. "I wake up to it every morning. I'd think a big, bad trickster such as you could suck it up a little. Ouch. Fine. You want me to come over to that side and make Zeke play nice?" The "ouch" would be from my escalating annoyance.

The picture of Zeke playing nice made all the irritation instantly disappear. It was too ludicrous to imagine. Zeke being a good boy-I would've laughed, but in that moment I saw them… two men meandering down the sidewalk from Zeke's end. They wore baseball hats and knee-length jackets bulky enough to hide a baseball bat. "Have to go, Griffin. I have two over here. Look for one on your side. It's time to get off the bench and play for real." I hoped that Zeke remembered we were here to help, but vengeance wasn't ours this time. And it wasn't Heaven's. It belonged to these people.

I made a quick call, then put the cell phone away and waited. They kept coming, not trying to look inconspicuous by hunching their shoulders or keeping their heads down. They swaggered, predators on the prowl and proud as punch. Except they were more like poodles on the prowl, teacup ones, strolling into the open mouth of a lion. Pulling the hood of my raincoat over my hair, I did some hunching of my own. Hopeless, helpless, lost… victim. Put out what you want others to see and they'll see it. Whether you're a pretender to the throne or to the gutter, the ignorant rarely see the chameleon. And if the chameleon is actually less a tiny lizard and more of Godzilla waiting to swallow you whole… that truly was your bad luck. You should've looked closer. You should've paid attention.