Rob Thurman: The Grimrose Path

“I can’t believe I was replaced by you,” the demon said. “It’s embarrassing. They couldn’t have gotten a flamingo or a canary? Both would be less insulting. The Canary of Death. It has a much better ring to it.”

“You were an Angel of Death? Why does that not surprise me?” I snorted, sitting up and brushing the rest of the kaboodle from my hands. Cronus was gone, but suddenly the wingless demons remaining were more of a threat than they had been. Here was hoping we had a standoff between what was left of the angels and the demons. The cold war was over on Earth, but it was still thriving Above and Below.

“Not an Angel of Death. The Angel of Death. If I’d been around for the Ten Plagues, darlin’, well”—he grinned, the curve of a sickle carved in the shape of a smile—“why stop with Egypt when it comes to firstborn? Show a little initiative and enthusiasm for your work. Santa Claus can visit the world in one night. So can I.”

“You have changed none with God’s punishment, grown no wiser but only more arrogant. I am not surprised, but I am the Angel of Death now, fallen. We could take you and your pathetically neutered brethren at this very moment.” Azrael’s sword wasn’t of heavenly origin as he’d stubbornly claimed, but it worked all the same as it flared to life between them.

Eli, dressed in that brown leather jacket he was so fond of and a new hat that was made for finding myth in the desert per movie legend, let his dark grin widen. He pointed at the other demons and then jerked his thumb downward. They vanished instantly. He ran a finger along the fedora, then tugged it low over his eyes. “All right then, Az. Here’s your big chance to take on your ex-boss. Let’s see what a pretender can do with the title.”

Azrael hesitated, scanned the approximately twenty-five remaining angels, then flared his wings and silently took to the air before disappearing into it, leaving a fury so thick you could taste it. He thought he was hot shit and he was, but if Eligos had been the first Angel of Death, experience and seniority did tell. I knew it told me something as all the other angels followed their leader. Eli had once said that Hell had worse demons than he, demons who couldn’t leave, who would burn the earth beneath them with every step if they did. I didn’t want to meet one of those. More powerful than Eli?

I didn’t want to see that.

True or not, I didn’t let Eli see it. “Where’s your whip? You can’t rob a desert tomb without a whip.”

The smile shaded into something almost affectionate, if death itself could be said to have that softer emotion. “You’re right. There is so much you can’t do properly without a whip, Trixa-of-my-heart, you couldn’t begin to believe it.” He laid a hand over my own heart as Zeke and Leo growled behind me, but stayed put. They knew if I needed help, I’d ask for it. “You took out a Titan. First Solomon and now this. You keep getting more and more entertaining. I haven’t had this much damn fun in centuries. I take my hat off to you.”

He did. He disappeared, but the hat stayed behind, falling to the dirt beneath. I picked it up and put it on, giving the brim my own flick of my finger. “Here’s for staying entertaining.” He was still going to try and kill me someday; that was a given. That day wasn’t this day though. This day was good.

My optimism was renewed. Life wasn’t always sweet or true, but it was now.

Sweeter than sugar.

Spilt milk, it couldn’t be undone. That’s what they said. They were wrong. Anna was proof of that. No good deed went unpunished. They said that too. That could be one they managed to get right.

I was in Leo’s guest room, with my brother’s picture. Curled up in the covers, I watched the play of light on the wall. I had a lot to think about: arranging for Trixsta to be rebuilt, getting used to the fact I actually had a home, being human . . . a trickster, yes, but a human one for the time being. Those were big things, enormous in my life. Then there was Leo and my excuse that we were too much alike, but he was the same as a home—something I wasn’t supposed to want. I was told not to want. Shape-shifters were raised to change more than our appearances. Ours was a culture of the ephemeral. We moved from shape to shape, place to place, person to person.

We were the wind. That’s the way the story went as long as any of us could remember. Who was I to change it?

Me. I was me. When had I let anyone tell me what to do? Except for my mama. I groaned and yanked the covers higher. These, especially Mama, were all things I wasn’t going to solve overnight. It was going to take time, a few days, maybe a trip to Valhalla. There was time.

Once I got something wrapped up. That good deed coming back to bite me in the ass. I’d known Azrael would hold a grudge against me, Zeke, and Griffin. I’d known it from our first meeting. He couldn’t bear that we lived; he couldn’t tolerate our existence. He couldn’t tolerate Zeke for rejecting Heaven and Griffin and me for who we were. Griffin, an abomination. Me, a mouthy abomination who consorted with his former superior. I did think the mouthy part was what had gotten to him most. I knew he’d start with me. It was only a matter of time. I had thought he’d wait at least a few nights, but patience and pride often trip up each other. He’d only waited hours. I believed Eligos was a better Angel of Death, the finest predators had infinite patience. Azrael had none.

“I see you, Azrael,” I said quietly, staying on my side with the covers pulled up beneath my chin. Every little boy and girl believed their sheets and blanket could be armor against the monsters in the dark. Wouldn’t it be nice if that were true? “You think death has never come for me in the night before? That I wouldn’t recognize it?”

He stepped out of the corner, although his wings and his hair stayed part of the darkness. His eyes I could see. They didn’t look any different than a demon’s. “Your kind did this, nearly destroyed us all. Who are you to think you can walk away from that? Who are you to think you do not deserve punishment?”

Cronus had been païen , but that didn’t make him my kind. He hadn’t been anyone’s kind in the whole of reality. Azrael knew that, but it was a good excuse to do to me what the Angel of Death was meant to do. If Cronus hadn’t been païen , Heaven’s own would’ve found another justification for what curled dark within him. Demons killed with a hot passion and Azrael killed with a cold satisfaction. Hot or cold, they both enjoyed their work far too much not to let it spread. Work, hobby, life. They lived to kill. Azrael wasn’t Eligos, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t good at what he did, only that he wasn’t the best. Now that I was human, it didn’t take the best to kill me. It didn’t take much at all, I’d discovered.

“Are you going to hide under the covers like a child?” Azrael stepped closer. “It wouldn’t make a difference if you were. I have pity for no one, least of all you.”

No, he had pity for no one, certainly not for me. It made it easy to have no pity for him in return.

“Eligos was right. You can’t begin to fill his shoes,” I said with a dose of contempt Azrael would find difficult to swallow and impossible not to react to. Releasing my hold on the covers, I shifted onto my back. As Griffin had risen, I thought it was time for an angel to fall. “And you’re not half as smart as you think you are. You’re certainly not half as smart as I am.”

He was on me then, without a word. It was the same when he impaled himself on the sword I pulled from beneath the sheets. Not the Lethe sword, as that was gone, but Leo had let me borrow a nice steel one. Heavy and brutal in battle, those Norse roots couldn’t be denied. “Heaven must be so disappointed in you.” I looked up into the cold, sculpted face that hung above me and found nothing worth saving. “I know I am, and I know they are too.”