Rob Thurman - The Grimrose Path

“And?” He tapped his fingers on the wood of the table. “I can’t believe you’re so petty. Wait, you’re a trickster, so yes, I do.”

“Yes, I am, and yes, I am.” I took the glass from his hand and a swallow of the wine myself. It was excellent. “Cronus, the Titan, a creature I wouldn’t believe could love, did fall in love with, of all imaginable things, a human. That’s why I was in the dark regarding any motivation for his psychotic behavior—not that he needs motivation. The few tricksters who heard the story passed it off as the very worst concocted of rumors, and we love rumors, even more than the truth. But a Titan falling in love? With a human? That was too ridiculous to repeat or toss into our gossip network. Yet the ridiculous and unthinkable turns out to be true or Cronus wouldn’t be waging war on Hell. He did fall in love . . . with a woman. Rose, Rosemary, Rosita—no one knows her exact name, only that she was his Rose.”

“Was,” Eli exhaled. “I sense a pattern here. Was. She was his Rose.” He let his head fall back to stare at the ceiling glumly. “Let me guess. His Rose was a naughty, naughty girl. Stupid, stupid human.”

“Maybe not that naughty. But she wanted fame, fortune, what most humans want, and Cronus, to test her love, loved her as a human. In a human body I’m guessing he was a damn sight more convincing than the one he showed up in here today.” I grimaced slightly. Bad work was bad work, whether it was lack of talent or just not giving a rat’s ass. “Emotions too. For some reason, maybe boredom, he did become human, if only temporarily. He felt as a human feels, he loved as a human loves, and Rose thought he was human. She didn’t know about païen or Titans. But she knew about demons when one came around and enlightened her, tempted her, and then she traded her soul for what Cronus could have given her for free.”

“He wanted proof that she could love him without knowing what he was and what he could give her and she ended up in Hell because of it—well, that and her human nature. I like that story. With the greed, lust, and pride, and being damned to Hell, it would make a nice combination of Edgar Allan Poe and O. Henry.” Eli looked back down, took the wineglass back from me, waved his hand over it, and refilled it. “Water to wine is easy. Air to wine is much more impressive. Now you’re telling me that Cronus is going to walk through Hell and go mano a mano or Titano a Demonio with Lucifer because some random demon took the soul of his lovely if shallow Rose.”

“Demons are a dime a dozen and for a Titan to bother with an underling when he can take out the boss isn’t going to happen. A demon took his Rose, so Cronus will wipe all demons, their home, and their king from existence. That’s the Chicago way and it’s the Titan way as well.” I smiled. “And, with my curiosity taken care of, still not my problem. Now, if you could take the dead tourist with you when you go, I’ll consider that payment enough. That and, you know, the sheer enjoyment I get from seeing how screwed you are.” I crossed both feet on the spare chair and studied my new red boots with heels that could slash a throat. It was a brighter red than I normally chose, the color of a stripe in a candy cane. Red didn’t always have to be the color of blood. No, not always. It could be the color of a fast car, a sexy dress . . . or a rose.

Eli dipped a finger into the wine and turned it to the blood I’d just been thinking of. “There’s a way to stop him. There’s always a way to stop anyone, a way to escape anywhere. We made it out of Disneyland, didn’t we? The most boring place in eternity. The singing, the praising, the showing humans the path of love and Almighty Glory. If we could escape that, we can escape destruction at the hands of one miserable païen .”

I dropped my feet back to the floor and folded my hands, resting my elbows on the table. “Here’s the church.” I raised my index fingers to meet. “Here’s the steeple.” Then I moved my thumbs apart and flipped my hands over and waved my fingers. “Open the door and see all the people. All the never-to-be-damned people because you and yours will be gone. But I do wonder where the evil souls will go then. Many won’t be damned with you gone, but it doesn’t necessarily take your kind to make some people step off the path of the righteous. You’re good at it, but you’re not absolutely crucial to the process. They can do it themselves. Maybe some païen afterworlds will snap them up. They’ll be punished, if they deserve it, but at least we won’t eat them. Well, most of us won’t.”

Eli drank the blood. I don’t think he noticed he hadn’t changed it back to wine, or maybe he liked the taste. Once you’ve eaten thousands of souls, you have to begin to wonder what the container tastes like. Demons had wondered that a long time ago. They murdered, they stole lives and souls, and occasionally they ate one or the other or both at the same time. “I’ll have to ask the boss about this first, but I think I might have a way to satisfy Cronus.” He drained the glass without any visible enjoyment. Giving in to a païen . For a demon, it was a big sacrifice and they didn’t like to be on the wrong end of the sacrificing. “What if we were to let all the Roses go? Every single one of them. He can find his and pop her in a freshly made body of his own design. That’s a gesture large enough for even a Titan to take notice, I’m confident.”

“Digest your Bloody Mary and keep thinking that. This is a païen the rest of us don’t begin to understand and one who, for a while, became human. A god times ten became human and did not enjoy the experience . What he might take notice of I won’t guess at. But, hey, sugar, you give it your scaly best.” I paused, then pointed out the potential flaw in his plan. “And you are assuming she hasn’t been eaten yet.”

“You have a better plan?” He scowled, his eyes going from green and copper to black and copper.

“You think I’d tell you if I did?” I waved a hand at the tourist. “Remember, take him when you go. And, as I said, now that my curiosity is satisfied, y’all don’t come back, ya hear? Ever .”

“If you are satisfied, then you’re not curious about the right things.” His eyes shifted back to human.

“It’s not especially alluring when you say that with blood on your breath,” I said with a stone-still calm.

“As if you’ve never had it on yours.” The copper flecks were brighter and his words . . .

Hell, they were true.

But mine were always with good reason. I was justice. Eli was only Hannibal Lecter crossed with a T. rex—a sociopathic carnivore. I killed the wicked, if necessary. He would kill anyone and anything. But he was gone before I could tell him so. Not that I would’ve bothered and not that he would’ve cared. No, I wouldn’t have bothered and he wouldn’t have cared, but I would’ve cared . . . a little.

I shouldn’t have. I did what I was meant to, born to, raised to, and I loved my work. But there was the occasional moment I wondered what it would be to be like Leo, have tricking being only my hobby. That my existence wasn’t my occupation—and I could broaden my horizons. Take a vacation and let the stupid do what the stupid did. Let evil do what evil did.

But everyone had a calling, and I could no more stand by and let the ignorant and the sinister bumble about than I could wear gold lamé. I dropped my head forward and rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. “I save one only to lose another. That’s not good math even for a two-year-old.”

“It’s not one for one. It’s one for thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands,” Leo responded quietly. “Unfortunate for him, but he didn’t die for nothing. He died for a reason, died a hero, despite not knowing it.”