Rob Thurman: The Grimrose Path

They were the other angels who appeared out of the corner. Four more archangels, and they’d brought Ishiah with them, the only one still right with Heaven that I trusted. I’d told him Azrael would be coming, and he’d told others. Azrael had helped to save Heaven, but he’d done it without risking his own life—only the lives of his brothers. It was his way, self-serving, which I didn’t think had gone unnoticed in the past. I thought his was a reckoning that was a long time coming, the battle the final straw. It helped as well that Ishiah had dropped a word in the right ears, pointed out that while Azrael had helped to sacrifice others in the service of Heaven, in the end I was the one who had destroyed Cronus. Killing me, that lowered Azrael to païen behavior . . . or worse, the demonic kind. Azrael had rank, but he had no friends among his fellow archangels, ones with the most will on high. With that will, they could make decisions Azrael wasn’t going to like.

“You don’t deserve to live,” he hissed. “Life is wasted on the filth that is you.”

“Is that any way to be?” I tsked. “You deserve to live, Azrael, for all time, but I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

The hands of the other archangels fastened onto his arms as he reached for my throat. They pulled him up and off the sword. I dropped the weapon to the floor; I waggled my fingers at him in a mocking good-bye. “Send me a postcard from Down Under, that is if Eligos doesn’t eat you.” It didn’t take the best to kill me anymore, but you at least had to be good. Azrael didn’t meet either definition of the word.

The angels left, taking Azrael with them . . . Ishiah too, although I assumed they’d drop him someplace nicer, such as home back in New York. Other angels, Ishiah had assured me when I’d told him what Azrael would do, had been watching over Zeke and Griffin, as little as they’d liked it. That was Heaven’s problem, not mine. If I saved reality, including their feathered asses, they owed me one. Keeping my boys safe had been that one. At least it had turned out to be only one night under the crystal eyes of Heaven’s guardians. Trying to sleep knowing they were hanging around . . . It was worse than sneaking in past curfew when you had a mama with a hand quick to swat trickster butt.

Long-gone days.

I hit the pillows to plump them up and watched as Leo came out of his closet, leaving his shotgun behind. I trusted Ishiah . . . some, but trust or not, it was always smart to have a backup plan.

“Exactly how many men in a bedroom does it take to satisfy you?” The raven tattoo on his chest flapped its wings, which actually meant Leo was flexing. Men and gods, the vanity never ended. Sometimes you had to love that about them.

“That’s an odd question coming from a man who just came out of the closet,” I pointed out as I pulled the covers back for him.

He slid under them and wrapped his arm around me as I turned on my side, facing him instead of the picture of my brother. “Did you notice this time?” His hair was loose and far longer than mine, but that wasn’t what he was talking about.

Men and gods and one who was both.

“That you were going to take on Azrael nude?” I moved my hand under the pillow and pulled out the raven feather I kept with me always. I hadn’t lost it with Trixsta. I didn’t think I could’ve lost it if I wanted to, but I could give it back. “I noticed.” I put the feather in his hand and folded his fingers around it. “I don’t think I need this anymore.”

He tightened his fingers and hand into a fist, then opened it. The feather was gone, home inside him. “We are the same, you know. In all the ways that are right. Our differences, they are what brought us together in the beginning. Our spots, faded or not, make us whole. They don’t separate us.”

“From one leopard to another?” I asked, skimming fingers through a fall of hair suddenly full of black feathers.

“From one leopard to another,” he confirmed before kissing me.

It wasn’t sun and warmth. It was dark and cool, shadows and tricks, the echo of the end of the world, and the potential for the same locked deep inside. Locks can be broken and trust was nearly a fairy tale to me, but I knew if Leo’s lock ever did break, it wouldn’t matter. My trust in him never would, whether I was trickster or human.

And I did like being human, vulnerabilities and all. It made seizing victory and grabbing that gold ring more difficult, but all the more satisfying for it. Yes, I definitely liked this human life. I might come to love it. Only time would tell there, but for today? For this moment, drowned in feathers, silver silk, and the faintest scent of honeysuckle from a Tennessee summer night?

Life was sweet all right.

Sweet as it came.

Rob—short for Robyn (yes, he is really a she)— Thurmanlives in Indiana, land of rolling hills and cows, deer, and wild turkeys. Many, many turkeys. She is also the author of the Cal Leandros series: Nightlife , Moonshine , Madhouse , Deathwish , and Roadkill ; a stand-alone novel, Chimera ; and a story in the anthology Wolfsbane and Mistletoe . She is also the author of Trick of the Light , the first book in the Trickster Novels series.

Besides wild, ravenous turkeys, the velociraptors of Indiana, she has a dog (if you don’t have a dog, how do you live?)—one hundred pounds of Siberian husky. He looks like a wolf, has paws the size of a person’s hand, ice blue eyes, teeth out of a Godzilla movie, and the ferocious habit of hiding under the kitchen table and peeing on himself when strangers come by. Fortunately, she has another dog that is a little more invested in keeping the food source alive. By the way, the dogs were adopted from shelters. They were fully grown, already house-trained, and grateful as hell. Think about it next time you’re looking for a Rover or Fluffy.

For updates, teasers, deleted scenes, and various other extras, visit the author at www.robthurman.net and at her LiveJournal.