Rob Thurman - Grimrose path

"Trixa?"

I waved the unvoiced question away. "Never mind." I didn't think Ishiah would betray me by spilling a seed of a plan-we were on the same side in this. But while that was true, you could plan all you want, but know at the end something will either go wrong or, worse yet, go right at the wrong moment. Angels, real nonretired angels, were mostly windup toys. If you burdened their brains with a plan and someone, theoretically speaking, blew up the bridge they were supposed to cross, they'd cross anyway. Splat splat splat. If I needed their help, I'd tell them what I needed precisely when I needed it. There was much less chance of their screwing things up.

Then there was the saying, an oldie but a goody, that loose lips sink ships. Ishiah said demons talked and Heaven had listened. That's how they'd found out about Cronus and his quest for the map to Hell. Demons weren't the only ones who talked. Ishiah was no gossip, but someone Upstairs had sent him here. He'd report to them and then there was no stopping it. Secrets by their very nature fought not to be kept. Put something in a cage and it wanted out… just like with Pandora's box. No, I'd feel better if I kept the key to the box that held my ghost of a plan to myself-ghost of half a plan. It was safer for everyone. Smarter as well, and I did so pride myself on being smart.

It could be Ishiah was right. I was vain, but how could you expect others to appreciate your brilliance if you didn't appreciate it yourself?

I sucked the bit of gravy off my thumb and slid the check to Ishiah's side of the table. "Oh, there is a tiny thing, you should know about. Very small." I held my thumb and forefinger barely a half inch apart and gave an encouraging, pep-rally smile to show how very tiny a thing it was. "I lied to Eli about what Cronus wanted and conned him into turning a hundred thousand or so souls loose from Hell. I'm not sure he knows yet, but when he does, you might not want to be around for that."

"You lied to Eligos?" The check in Ishiah's hand became a tightly wadded ball of paper as his fist clenched. "To Eligos?"

"I've done it before. He seems to find it entertaining." I pushed my chair back and stood. "But I have a feeling when his boss, the big boss, finds out he was cheated out of that many souls, Eli won't find me quite as amusing anymore."

"Tricksters." Ishiah grimly smoothed out the check and stood to go pay. "All of you. Pucks or shape-shifters. Whether you're the kind with a survival instinct or not, you'll throw it away instantly for the chance at one good trick."

"It wasn't good," I corrected, vexed. "It was unparalleled. I saved thousands, maybe a hundred thousand souls." I didn't invent the big fish story, but I was sure it was a trickster who had. "I'd think I'd get a sainthood at the very least."

"A hundred thousand souls saved, but did they all deserve to be saved?"

The voice of conscience. I was glad it lived in NYC and not here. It wasn't as if I hadn't thought some of the souls might not be rightfully damned. Abusers, murderers, but I knew, I'd seen that one Rose hadn't deserved anything close to damnation. Leo had promised to pass along the word via his family. Our afterlives weren't Heaven or Hell. There was more leeway, more flexibility between what was evil and what was only naughty. Most of the souls would find the home they were due. Justice would be served, and if some did escape to wander alone, unable to touch the real world or any world for the rest of eternity, that was a punishment all its own.

"Your rules aren't necessarily our rules. I saved an innocent girl. I tricked Hell-that's what I was born to do. Chirp away, Jiminy. It won't do you any good." He kept the chirping silent, but it was implicit in the way he held himself as we walked back to the bar. Stiff back, tight jaw, braced shoulders.

At Trixsta's door-Leo had the glass fixed… nice of him-I stopped. "You didn't ask what Cronus wanted. What he really wanted."

"After what you did by conning Eligos, truthfully, I'm afraid to ask. You put yourself in Hell's crosshairs. Made yourself the target of every demon alive. I don't think you could survive that, trickster or not. That makes me think you took a huge risk because you know what Cronus wants and it's something you aren't going to walk away from… that chances are good that no one is walking away from. Plus, if you were going to tell me, you would have by now, and I know how impossible it is to pin down an uncooperative trickster. Heaven won't like it, but I know better than to think I can do anything to change that. You'll tell me when you want to and no sooner."

He was right… about it all. I took his arm and turned him from the door after calling for Leo. "Leo will take you to the airport, Ish. Go back home to New York and sex up Goodfellow five ways to Sunday. Hold on to what you have now. There's no guarantee the world will keep turning. That's true of any day, but with Cronus here, it's even more true… so go home. Give Robin my best." As Leo stepped outside, I asked him if he would take Ish to the airport and he did his pissed-but-I-am-stoic-and-rise-above-it expression. I smiled, squeezed his arm, and urged the both of them toward the alley and Leo's car. I'd called the restaurant this morning too. My car was long gone-to the tow yard or Mexico. "But whatever you do," I called to Ishiah, "stay out of his pantry."

Puzzlement and annoyed jealousy crossed the peri's face before he shook his head in resignation. "Tricksters." He asked one last time, "Are you positive you don't want to tell me? Who knows? It might save your life." Against Cronus? I wished Heaven had that kind of power. I wished anyone did. I shook my head and made a shooing gesture as if he were a particularly stubborn rooster and I was all out of corn. "Damn tricksters," he embellished.

He was disappearing into the alley when I challenged after him. "So close to blasphemy. So close."

The only thing he left behind was his growl to call him when I needed the help-not if, but when. It was irritating that he knew that I would. I almost hoped Goodfellow didn't give him any.

A puck not give it up? That would never happen.

After they left in Leo's car and I waved to them, I went into the bar, five… ten steps. Eligos came up through the floor as if it was nothing more than a hallucinatory mist instead of hardwood-the shattered hole about the size of a well's mouth. His claws tangled in my shirt, and we kept going up. When we hit the ceiling, it was the same as the floor… to Eli. I was in a human body, however, not demon, and it hurt, even with Eli ahead of me-by a nose, like they said at the racetrack, by a nose.

By nearly a foot, a head, in his case. He was in full demon form-copper scales, thrashing wings, a narrow dragon's jaw, broken glass teeth, a fury-filled black gaze with swirling specks as brilliant as coins weighing down a dead man's eyes. I caught flashes of all that as wood splinters, paint chips, and plaster chunks and dust fell around us as we ended up in my bedroom. If Eli hadn't been leading the way clearing a path, I would've broken my neck on the ceiling or crushed my skull or, hell, both.

We hovered in the air in my bedroom as I all but swallowed my tongue to keep from coughing at the dust or make a sound at the tearing pain in my shoulders that had scraped through Eli's new "door." A fully functioning shape-shifting trickster wouldn't, so I couldn't. "Lying bitch." It was calmly said, but the movement that went with it was anything but restrained. I flew through the air and landed on the bed… almost. I never appreciated the difference "almost" could make until I hit the floor on my back. I'd fallen there like an autumn leaf… if an autumn leaf weighed a buck thirty.

Buck thirty-five.

Buck… no one's goddamn business.