Rob Thurman - The Grimrose Path

Griffin had been what he thought to be the worst of monsters, those he’d fought to the death after being recruited for Eden House. He had nothing to prove to any of us, but he had an enormous amount to prove to himself. Fighting demons with Zeke helped now that Eden House had fallen, but that wasn’t enough. He had to kill more of what he’d once been, save more people that in the past he would’ve killed. But Griffin was too good. Held himself to an impossible standard. I wasn’t sure he could save enough to save himself—to give him peace.

“Where?” I retrieved the knife, the rubber of the floor matting ripping. “I can put this in you anywhere you want. Pick one. Because if you don’t tell me where Griffin is right this damn minute, I’ll pick one and you won’t like it. And the next spot you’ll like even less.”

He said he didn’t know, that maybe there was this place they’d talked about, but he wasn’t a hundred percent sure and I believed it. This useless brownnoser of all things demonic probably didn’t know anything in this life that was a hundred percent. If he did, he wouldn’t be kissing monster ass every minute he wasn’t working or sleeping. A hundred percent sure or not, though, it was all we had.

The last thing he said before we threw him off the bus was suddenly pitiful after his boasting of Hell’s might and how he’d be a part of it. “Don’t tell them I told you. Don’t tell them...” And then Zeke kicked him through the door, the last words swallowed up by the sound of his impact against the pavement, the scream as something in him snapped—an arm or leg. It didn’t matter. He had known about Griffin for weeks.

Of course I was going to tell them. The wannabe would find out what it was like to get what he wanted . . . to be noticed by demons. If we left any alive.

A repossessed house isn’t the same as a possessed house and shouldn’t be frightening, especially in Vegas where it’s all stucco, everything looks the same, and you could drive to five different houses before you ever recognized your own. There was no stereotypical haunted house “look.” Besides, a repossessed house, scary qualities aside, didn’t make a good spot to hide. Right now there were hundreds of them and if you threw a rock at two real estate agents, chances were fifty-fifty you’d hit a demon, but usually houses still were not a good place to hole up for a demon. Normally if they didn’t want their bad behavior noticed, they’d take it out of town to the desert where only the burros and jackrabbits were there to see . . . or to hear.

Which made it odd that if they’d set a trap for Griffin, they would bring him to a house within yards of other houses . . . except the entire neighborhood was abandoned. Half built on the edge of town, those few who’d lived there at its conception had lost it all when the housing market crashed. Apparently the developer had too. Skeletons of houses were slowly falling apart, dead before they were even fully born. No one was left to hear the screaming . . . and demons did love to make their victims scream—and beg and plead, but mostly scream. Sometimes for someone to save them . . . anyone . . . God, Jesus, Allah, Mommy. Usually no one did.

Life was like that. If there was a master plan in place, fairness didn’t seem to enter into it. And as much as my kind and I tried to make up for that . . . vengeance is never as good as remaining innocent and whole.

“I can’t hear him. I can’t hear him. I can’t hear him.” Zeke was in the front seat, a .480 Ruger in his hand. He was rocking slightly, back and forth. The chanting and rocking made him look like a lost child. The gun and murderous rage that made his face as blank as an executioner’s hood made him look anything but.

I’d taken over the driving. I wanted Griffin safe almost as much as Zeke did, but I didn’t want to plow over the top of some granny’s ecofriendly little hybrid to do it. Cute, save-the-planet green, and made for getting caught in the undercarriage of a bus driven by a hell-bent-for-leather man with tunnel vision for saving his partner. “If you don’t hear him, then he’s unconscious. He’s not in any pain. That’s good, right?” I stopped the bus on a road now covered with layers of dirt except for one clear set of tire tracks. Demons could pop in and out as they pleased, but they couldn’t do it with people. Either they had to have permission, like the old completely false myth of the vampire needing an invitation, or the person wouldn’t survive the trip. I didn’t know which it was and I didn’t care right now. All I cared about was Griffin and if they brought him here, they’d have to do it the mundane way—in a car. About two blocks away one house, a finished one that had once had landscaping that had since died, hosted a light—one light that flickered, in and out, like a campfire or like a tiny bit of Hell itself.

“I can’t hear him. How can that be good? How can that be any fucking good?” Zeke bolted to his feet and was through the door into the night and running before I had a chance to snatch at his shirt, an arm, anything at all. Desperation—where human speed ended and more-than-human began.

“Shit.” I was right behind him, or so I thought, as he began to pull away from me. Maybe Zeke always heard him, even when Griffin was asleep. There could be some internal hum all the time, ocean waves against a subconscious shore, a mental heartbeat. I’d thought Zeke would know if Griffin was alive or dead, but I might have been wrong. He could be running on nothing but hope or denial, and I couldn’t know for sure, because I couldn’t catch him to ask.

I pushed myself to go faster when I knew there was nothing left to give, but surprisingly I was wrong. Desperation worked for Zeke and it worked for me as well. I ran through the door of the house only seconds behind him to nearly crash into him. He was still, looking up, as stunned as someone watching the sky fall—the moon and stars, all coming down in an impossible crash and burn. The end of days. The end of life . . . the end of his life.

“Now, now, Tweetie. Don’t look so sad. He’s not dead. I keep my promises . . . well, almost never. But this time I made an exception.”

I ignored Eli’s voice as I followed Zeke’s unwavering focus to Griffin hanging above us. His wrists were tied together and that rope wrapped several times to the wrought-iron rail of the second-floor loft. His feet hung just inches over our heads. In the low light, candlelight, I recognized without thought, I could see the purpling bruise that covered one side of his face, from temple to jaw. His shirt was ripped and bloody, but not saturated. The slashes were superficial, but the head wound, that wasn’t. Eligos was telling the truth though. Griffin was still breathing. He was alive, but unconscious. That’s why Zeke couldn’t hear him now, but would hear him again.

Absolutely goddamn would.

Zeke was growling now. It wasn’t the sound a human would make, nor an angel or demon. It was the sound of fury incarnate and Eli was a trigger pull away from being a puddle incarnate dripping off the chair he was currently sitting in. I’d looked away from Griffin and there was my least favorite demon in all his glory through the arched doorway to the right . . . having takeout on the dining room table by candlelight, which I knew he thought brought out the highlights in his hair. I was not in the mood for that or any other of his vanities.

“It’s Thai.” He tilted the chair back and waved a fork spearing a piece of chicken. I could smell the coconut curry. “I didn’t think you were ever going to figure it out and get here. I would’ve eaten my compadres instead of wasting them to grout cleaner if I’d known you’d be so long.” That’s when I saw the pools of black on the tile floor surrounding the table—enough to have been at least ten demons.