Rob Thurman: Trick of the Light

“Trixa Iktomi,” Solomon said with the warmest of smiles. Solomon, whom I’d made it my business to know, had been in Vegas as long as, if not longer than, I, and knew how to sling the bullshit or to turn on the charm, if you preferred the more elegant term. Whichever you called it, it had the same result—a woman hanging on his every word. “My sweet Trixa. Do I detect the faintest smell of smoke? A new scented shampoo, perhaps?”

I could’ve said something like, “Yes, it’s a new perfume. Everyone’s dying for it.”

Please.

I’m not that woman and I never will be. I wasn’t that trite, and I wasn’t playing his games. Any I played would be my own. “Actually, it’s the smell of an asshole’s burning nightclub,” I remarked pleasantly. “Thanks for noticing.” I didn’t have the cleanest mouth, but I blamed it on Zeke. I was working on it though. Self-improvement was one of my many goals. One day I planned on getting around to a few of them. I motioned to Leo to pour me and the asshole two shots of tequila with beer backs.

Solomon, as I’d made very clear, was an asshole, but a sexy one. Short black hair with a faint widow’s peak, a slightly cleft chin, broad shoulders, good height, and full, Latin lips that got me every time. He was dressed in a simple gray shirt, black slacks, and a black leather jacket.

Demons, in human form, are almost always good-looking— too good-looking really—and why wouldn’t they be? They’re hot, loaded with charisma, deeply fascinated by you and everything you say or do, and are everything nature designed to make you want to jump their bones. It’s how it works. They want your soul. They have to make you want to give them your soul. Looking like a plumber with a gut and a bit of tasteful butt-crack showing isn’t going to get the job done. You have to want them . . . enough to give them anything—and the soul is pretty up there in the anything department.

But if that’s all it was—smart demons getting stupid humans to hand over their souls—I couldn’t care less. If you’re stupid enough to sell it, then that’s your vacation pit of agony and despair to worry about, not mine. But that’s not all there is. That would be too easy. No, demons like to kill too—all demons—no matter what Solomon said about himself. If there’s a serial killer uncaught, or a random massacre with no clues as to why, or someone who just disappears, drops off the face of the earth—chances are there’s a demon behind it. They tortured their victims, mutilated them, and killed them. Why?

As one dying demon had once said to me as black blood gushed out of his grinning mouth, “It beats reruns.”

“Why, Trixa?” Solomon said, interrupting my thoughts. He examined the shot glass for fingerprints, and then looked down at the tequila as if the pedestrian drink were so far beneath him that he could barely see the pale gold glitter. Sighing, he tossed it back and then rolled the beer bottle between his two palms. “You know I don’t kill. I’m not a murderer. I take souls, but only those freely given.” His temper turned immediately and drastically. “So why, Trixa, loving bitch of my life, do you keep burning down my goddamn nightclub?”

There was a dangerous glitter in his eyes, velvet gray, as his dark, thick eyebrows slashed downward in an anger that almost shimmered in the air. The slightly olive skin even whitened over his jaw. It was well-done—I had to give him that.

“Bravo.” I tossed back my own tequila, then clapped politely. “Anger, domination, an almost sexual rage. Give props to the gentleman, please, for one hell of a show.”

The warm smile reappeared, rueful and just the tiniest bit sheepish. “Too much? Too little? Where was I off?”

I touched the red of my long-sleeved silk sweater. “This is what I see when a demon really gets pissed. Red. Blood. Then there might be some pinkish gray of lungs and intestines.” Horrific, but true. “And when things get really interesting, really in-depth, there will be—”

He held up a hand. “Enough. I get your point. You should’ve met Shakespeare. He said I was a magnificent actor.”

The smile never changed. Sexy, warm, and sheepish. I’m a bad boy and you’ve caught me. But under every bad boy is a good one waiting to be redeemed, right? Wrong. Which was how so many naïve high school girls got pregnant before they could drive. Redemption doesn’t come from without. It comes from within. Leo, my bartender, could give a lecture series on the subject.

As for the situation at hand, Solomon was a bad boy, no matter how attractive or charming. I wasn’t about to forget that for a moment, no matter the smile, the lips, the eyes, or the challenging give-and-take between us. Demons are liars by nature, killers by choice, and forgetting that was a mistake I couldn’t afford to make.

“Pay for the drinks and get the hell out of here, Solomon. Go tell some other girl how you only take souls and what a great guy that makes you. What an honest monster , because, frankly, I’m tired of hearing it. And,” I added with emphasis, “I’m insulted you think I’m that gullible.”

“No. You’re not gullible. You’re cynical, in fact, and that blinds you. You can’t see the truth when it’s right before you. And caveat emptor doesn’t even apply here, you know,” he said softly, his hand once again reaching out for mine. “They pay and I deliver. Whatever they ask for, they get. Without fail. How can you hold me in contempt for being an honest tradesman?”

I shook him off . . . not instantly, but I did shake him off and tried not to count the seconds that it took me to make my hand move beneath his. His touch was warm, the same exact warmth of human flesh. The same give. The same electric touch of life. I looked away from him as I said flatly, “Never even touched the hair of an innocent. Never so much as scratched a child, woman, man. Never cut a driver off on the interstate. Go tell it to someone who doesn’t know demons like I do.”

“What if I could prove it?” he challenged.

“You can’t,” I replied, dismissing him, but I did look back, surprised he’d even pretend that he could. Demons were all about pretense, but Solomon usually knew better than to try that with me.

“Maybe not,” he admitted with a shrug and a slow, serious curve of his lips. “But what if I could? Think about that, Trixa. What if I could?”

“No demon can because all demons are killers.” I pointed at the door. “No exceptions.”

“Maybe, just maybe, you don’t know them at all,” he whispered in my ear. “Or maybe it’s just that you don’t know this one.”

Then he was gone. Paid for the beer and tequila and left. To give him credit, he paid for his and mine. The gentleman demon.

“Why the hell do you screw around with him?” Zeke came up after Solomon disappeared out the front door and hissed at my elbow.

I raised my eyebrows sharply. Griffin grabbed Zeke’s wrist and squeezed lightly. It was his guiding signal. Think. What do we say, this or that? What do we do, this or that? What are the consequences of each choice? Think .

Zeke blinked at me, considered for a second, then said, “Shit . . . I meant, why the hell do you put up with him? Messing with you?”

I smiled and leaned over to kiss his jaw, a whisper of copper stubble against my lips. I wanted to say he’d done well, very well, but he would’ve hated that . . . attention brought to his problem. He was proud, stubborn, and temperamental—add that to the all-or-nothing hardwiring of his brain and he was a handful. More of a hell-raiser than any demon.

“Because Solomon is big or he wouldn’t stick around Vegas.” But they knew that already. The minor demons never stay in one place too long and they definitely don’t own and operate nightclubs . . . those that aren’t burned to the ground. “You know that. Your organization knows that. Everyone who knows demons exist knows that. Solomon has useful information. And you know how I like information.” As I’d said, it kept the roof over my head just as much as the bar did. I sold information. It didn’t have to be demon related, especially since ninety-nine point nine percent of the people out there refused to believe in them, but it didn’t necessarily mean it couldn’t be demon related either. Lucky horse? High-stakes illegal poker game? Jewelry store robbery? Who stole your gorgeous gold Cadillac? You heard a lot of things in a bar and I’d tell any one of them for a price. As long as no one was hurt . . . no one who didn’t have it coming, anyway.