Rob Thurman: The Grimrose Path

“Armand is his second in command, then,” Griffin said, moving up beside me.

“Armand is a snack who’s currently picking up Eligos’s dry cleaning and having his car detailed,” I corrected. “Useful for a while, but still a snack when all’s said and done. Like Eli said, there’s no point in a higher demon eating a lower one, but sucking the energy from one close to your level, that’s worthwhile. And either Armand doesn’t get it or he’s hoping to turn the tables.”

“He’s stupid, then,” Zeke offered as he rocked back and forth on his heels, already bored.

“Not stupid, Kit, but not quite as bright as his boss.” He might be a duke in Hell, but he was no Eligos. The clock was ticking on him. My only regret was I wouldn’t be there to see it hit midnight. Looking from left to right at my boys, I changed the subject. “Who wants lunch? My treat.” Because when you didn’t pay, it really was a treat. “But snap snap.” I pulled out my phone and punched in a number. Why is it that the clairvoyant never call you first? I have a psychic to talk to.” And, depending on what he told me, the clock was ticking on him too. Only much faster.

Tick.

Tock.

The buffet owner did have it coming. First he tried to turn Zeke away at the door. Zeke was right: “All you can eat” means all you can eat—not all you can eat if you have a reasonably expandable stomach. If you mean all you can eat, excluding metabolism freaks who can eat their own weight in steak and crab legs before even beginning to eye the dessert bar, then you should note that on the sign.

Lesson one: Roaches in food? That’s simply embarrassing. Fingertips? . . . That only gets credit if you chop off your own finger for a free meal. For that I have to hoist the flag of respect and salute. That is true commitment and hard to find in a human—such infants in their conning ways. In the old days, before I was stripped of my trickster powers, I would’ve put a goat in the salad bar, where it would have complacently grazed away. But in the here and now, I had to deal with what I had to work with . . . my brain and a few hundred in cash. It was amazing. You could go to the pet store, buy an on-the-smaller-size boa constrictor, smuggle it into a buffet in your shoulder bag, turn it loose in the pasta bar, eat up while screaming patrons ran in all directions, leave, return the snake—because, say, it didn’t match your stripper wardrobe, get your money back, and the only downside was Griffin complaining there was a scale in his gelato.

He was awfully fastidious for an ex-demon, but as I’d told him and completely believed, he was human now. Or a peri if one wanted to be specific. Peris in mythology were half demon, half angel. In reality, they were expatriate angels who found Earth more to their liking than Heaven and obtained permission to “go native.”

I’d met a few peris of the ex-angel persuasion, but Griffin was the first demon one—the only demon one in existence. But I know he preferred thinking of himself as human rather than peri because of all the “ex” that went with the label, which was fine by me. All humans, any human, should be as good as my boy Griff. We parted ways at the buffet parking lot. I headed back to the pet shop and then home.

The psychic I was meeting back at Trixsta wasn’t half as fastidious or one-tenth as good as my boy. I’d told that poor little girl Anna to stay away from psychics and I’d told her that with good reason. There were three kinds of psychics in this world. First, there was the fake. . . . Everyone has to make a living and if you’re that naïve, I could let a human do a trickster’s work and not lose any sleep over it.

Second, there was the real thing. Usually human and connected to a plane of existence only they could see. To them, the world was one huge clock... every piece doing its part, every cog turning, and everything as it should be, no matter how horrible. They would never tell you ahead of time, but they’d smile sorrowfully as that bus finally ran your granny down and pat you on the back with a “There, there. What’s meant to be is meant to be. But cheer up. She’s one with the universe now.”

Big comfort.

Big asses . . . but technically I couldn’t punish them, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to.

Third was also the real deal, but they didn’t give a damn about philosophy or fate, Granny or the bus. They only wanted cold hard cash, and I understood that. You paid for something and they gave it to you. Trouble was, the second kind of psychics were right—as much as you might want to hate them for it. Things couldn’t be changed. What will be . . . Well, everyone knows the rest of that saying. But these third kind of psychics would tell you. The second type wouldn’t mention Granny and the bus. You’d find out in the fullness of time and they’d give you your money back with a smile of pity. They dealt in the light and the way, and that way, the best they’d discovered so far, happened to be blissful ignorance. Number three had no such compunction. Not only would he or she tell you about Granny but they’d even tell you the number of the bus that was going to run her muumuuloving, orthopedic-shoe-wearing self down. Then they’d put your money away and shove you out the door to make room for the next client. The bastards wouldn’t even bother to give you a Kleenex on your way out. And they definitely didn’t leave you any money to soak up those tears either.

That’s why I used only the third kind. They were sons of bitches, but they told you the truth, all of it. But I made absolutely sure that I wanted to know the truth before asking. Once it was out there, there was no taking it back, no matter how much you wanted to. That meant I didn’t use psychics often. They weren’t worth the pain or the money, and I usually could guess the future as clearly as they could see it. And the times that I couldn’t, when people died . . . family died, it would be too bad for the psychic I was with when I lost control because I couldn’t accept what they told me.

Fate. If you can’t accept it, don’t tempt it.

“You’re late,” came the complaint as soon as I walked into the bar.

“Galileo,” I sighed, dumping my bag and taking him in as he finished off his—I counted the plates—seventh plate of potato skins and cheese sticks. “You’re looking . . . your handsome usual self.”

Four hundred and fifty pounds if he was an ounce, he beamed over four double chins and patted greasy fingers on his Hawaiian shirt that sported hula girls and rather obscene monkeys peering up the grass skirts. “You know what they say at the Vatican, the sun doesn’t revolve around the earth. It revolves around me.”

I sat down opposite him, wondering idly for a moment if I could actually feel the pull of a gravity well, then got down to the matter at hand, because, quite frankly, the less of Galileo I had to put up with, the better. He might come off cheerful as Santa on vacation, feeding the slots and catching a show, but he was a shark through and through for his forty-some years. Too bad for him that made him about six inches long with a teeny tiny dorsal fin and sitting across from Jaws. “I need to ask you a question. I’d ask how much, but I believe you’ve already eaten your fee and then some.” I flicked a finger against one of the plates to make a ringing note hover in the air. “So I’m thinking we’ll make this an even trade.”

He laughed and smoothed a plump hand over what few black strands he had left for a seven-inch comb-over. “Sassy Trixa. Always joking, but you send me a client now and then, although this is your first time asking for yourself. Interesting. Interesting. So, I’m thinking, how’s ’bout an even four grand? And maybe I get to see you in a hula skirt to match my shirt?”