Rob Thurman - The Grimrose Path

We ended up laughing about long-past adventures as we made our way down that list. It made it easier. It balanced it out. Bad guy, good memory. Very bad guy, very good memory. Even worse guy, memories with huge gaping holes thanks to the massive amounts of wine we’d drunk that particular time.

Then suddenly closing time had come and the only progress we’d made was to have a good time reminiscing. But in my book, having a good time is the best progress you can make in almost any situation. Leo went home and I went upstairs to my apartment. I undressed, slipped into my favorite silk pajamas, brushed my teeth, and slept with all those memories swirling in bright colors. Wonderful dreams. Wonderful night.

All the better to make the morning even worse in comparison.

Roses are red.

Sometimes.

The one was, and it was beautiful, starting at the bottom with the pure deep crimson that was almost black, the red of the setting sun disappearing into twilight. The petals then gradually lightened to a vivid deep red the exact color of freshly spilled blood. The flower wasn’t full-blown, but a curve of a fresh bud not yet realizing its potential. Curves were good. I liked curves, whether on myself, because a woman should have curves, or in the impossible-to-follow swerves and convolutions of what passed for the thought processes of the male species. Males trying to wrap their minds around a concept that didn’t involve a football or pulling a trigger. They were cute that way, like homicidal puppies. Curves of the body and curves of the mind.

As for color . . .

Red was my favorite. Red like fire, a little arson warmed a girl’s heart. But what was tied around the rose pulled away your attention too fast to dwell on the color.

I should’ve enjoyed the rose. Most women like flowers, right? I should’ve put it in a vase filled with water. After all, red was more than my favorite; it was my signature, how I signed my work as a trickster. What was wrapped around the rose was the same sort of thing . . . only a preemptive version.

Less of a “Gotcha” and more of a “Here I come, ready or not.”

We were in no way ready for this.

So it was at eight, for once not sleeping in, that I stood and stared at the rose lying on the scarred and stained surface of my bar. Help me, Earth, Sun, and Sky. What were we going to do now?

I continued to stare at the rose, was utterly ignored by the Earth, Sun, and Sky, and finally decided to put it in a vase after all. I filled one from beneath the sink and carefully picked up the flower by its green stem. That same stem was wrapped in that black silk ribbon with an absolutely perfect bow. I made sure the material didn’t touch the water. This was someone I did not want to insult, piss off, or even slightly annoy with the slightest hint of disrespect. One trailing black end of the glossy material was embossed with gold lettering. Only a few letters, a calling card if you will. It read KPONYΣ.

It almost looked as if it were English, if only with sharper angles than usual on the letters and the last symbol. It wasn’t though. It was Greek. I read a lot of languages and spoke even more. You picked up quite a bit when you wandered about like I did. But your average sorority girl or frat boy could’ve read this too. And if they couldn’t, they would’ve had to bong a beer for not memorizing the Greek alphabet, while standing on one foot, hopping up and down, and also, again, bonging a beer.

I’d taught some truly exceptionally entertaining lessons at colleges.

I studied the name with the same exquisite caution that I would use in studying how to defuse a live bomb. Really, the two weren’t that different. Cronus was either in town or was on his way. Neither was good. Considering the mutilated catatonic demon, I was guessing it was the first, which was far less than good. Leo and I had tried to figure out who could wipe out that many demons in so little time. Here was our answer.

The Greek legend, which for once was fairly close to the real thing, said Cronus was something other than a god. True enough. He was a Titan—he birthed gods, and was considered a creature of chaos and disorder. I, myself, rather approved of those two qualities, but he had taken it to an extreme. He was the only one in the world who could claim that he had reigned in Hell and ruled in Heaven—only Hell was Tartarus and Heaven was the Elysian Fields. One of the many pagan or païen versions of the final resting places of many religions, human and païen . Some human religions had one Heaven and Hell each and some religions had hundreds; we païen have thousands. Cronus had once dominated two of them. Two was enough.

Cronus was the seed to the Grim Reaper myth down to the sickle for harvesting souls instead of wheat and he’d been more than good at it.

Sickle. Galileo had been on the money, if not more articulate about it. Cronus and his sickle.

Then after years beyond the telling, Cronus left both Tartarus and the Fields and took to roaming the earth and it wasn’t to spread justice or show off martial arts skills. No, far from it. Too bad he’d missed that Kung Fu show from the seventies. It might have mellowed him—doubtful though. Raging psychos rarely saw the silver lining, the rainbows, enjoyed the purr of a basketful of happy kittens.

Raging psycho would be a step up for Cronus. No, it was better to be accurate in situations like this. More than a step. It would be a whole staircase of them. Raging psychos were in preschool learning what Cronus had several doctorate degrees in. He didn’t own the field, but it was safe to say he was MVP and then some.

“What’s that?”

I looked over my shoulder to see Leo coming out of the back office. He was up and at work early too. After he saw this he might turn around and go home. I wouldn’t blame him. Take that exotic dancer of his on a trip to Tahiti. Morocco in Tahiti, what could be more appropriate?

I nudged the vase with the rose down the bar toward him with one finger, my short nail eerily matching the petals above. “Bows don’t necessarily go on presents.”

“Cronus,” he said. “Shit. Holy fucking shit.”

While that was serious language for Leo, who had preferred ending worlds as opposed to cursing, it about summed it up. Cronus . . . he was all kinds of shit and then some.

“Yes. Cronus.” I folded my arms, one wide gold cuff filigree bracelet glittering in the light. Wonder Woman had nothing on me. And we . . . we had nothing on Cronus. We hadn’t even put him on our list, because it would’ve been ludicrous. Overkill. Like making a list of what could possibly ruin your camping trip. Rain. Cold. Bugs. Or an asteroid the size of the moon hitting your tent dead on. Cronus was the asteroid. It simply didn’t pop to mind. Unfortunately, there were no coincidences in life. It was Cronus behind all this, simply because anything else that could take on that many demons would still shag ass as far from Cronus as it could get. Where the Titan stepped, all the païen world fled his shadow.

There was a new sheriff in town. And he was the kind that when he accomplished his business and left town, the town itself tended not to be there anymore.

Crumbling ruin.

Scorched earth.

Burned bones.

And one rose to leave on the grave.

“At least it’s not the Auphe,” Leo said as we both stared at the ribbon wrapped around the rose. The Auphe had been the A scribbled on the back of my list.

“Shhh,” I hushed immediately. Just as back in the slightly older days when humans didn’t say the devil’s name for fear he would appear, we païen felt close to the same way about the Auphe. The less said about them, the better. The less thought about them, the better. The less everything about them, the better. Nature’s first and best predator. Nature’s first and best psychopathic murderers. Nature’s first really big fuckup. I knew exactly where I was on the badass scale and I was varsity all the way when I was at full trickster status, but the Auphe? No one fucked with the Auphe.