Rob Thurman - Trick of the Light

“Damn,” I murmured to Mr. Trinity, “a real act of God. I’d never seen one before. You guys . . . sometimes Hell takes too long, huh?”

He looked at me blandly, as if he didn’t know what I was talking about, but that symmetry? Grandma and grandson going out the exact same way? Justice. It couldn’t be denied, and I certainly wasn’t going to. There was power behind this. Real power, the kind to be respected.

Trinity didn’t bother to discuss it, turning and walking away. His men stayed behind me, keeping me in sight. Keeping me in line, they thought. One seemed to think I wasn’t moving quickly enough and gave me a push. I whirled quickly enough that none of them had a chance to slide a hand inside their jackets. I punched the one who thought he could put his hands on me uninvited hard enough to knock him flat. I turned back and kept walking. “You shouldn’t take things for granted, especially not women who work in bars. Sometimes we have to act as our own bouncers,” I said over my shoulder. “Sometimes we have pervert dates.”

“And sometimes you even face demons.” Trinity slowed until I moved up even with him. “And that,” he said flatly, “is something civilians don’t do.” Not shouldn’t do or couldn’t do, but didn’t do. Mr. Trinity and the House of Eden had plans for me after this was all done. It wasn’t so far-fetched. The firstborn wiped out, the cities destroyed, angels had been God’s warriors in the Old Testament—Eden House had taken it on themselves to do that job now, and no middle-management Gabriel or Raphael had bothered to tell them differently.

While Trinity must have known every word of the Bible, I thought he rarely spent much time mulling over the love and forgiveness in the New Testament. Whatever he thought he was going to do to me, none of it would give the man a second’s pause or a single night’s bad sleep. After all, wasn’t it God’s will? Did anyone know that will better than Trinity? That doubt couldn’t exist in his mind. I knew that for a fact. He didn’t need to check it out first with any dagger-feathered angel; he already knew. Superiority, arrogance . . .

Pride. We all knew whose fall that went before. Mr. Trinity knew his Bible, but did he know his Bible?

Probably not.

Yes, Trinity no doubt had plans for me or just one in particular. A swift and ruthless one. It was entirely too bad for him, because he simply wasn’t man enough for the job.

“Hawkins and Reese may have foolishly trusted you, but I know differently. Whatever your reasons for killing demons, they aren’t ours. You don’t know the greater good.“

It was far too cuddly to call your employees by their first names, but I so rarely heard their last names—Zeke Hawkins, Griffin Reese—that I often had to think twice when I did hear them, just to remember who was being referred to. It was easy to forget. Just like Trinity would be quick to forget them once they were gone. His plans for them weren’t any better than the one he had for me. Regardless of whether they were true double agents on his side and not mine, watching Leo and me for Eden House and ready to help drag us in at any moment, their fates still wouldn’t have been any better. Working with outsiders? That was worse than failure to Trinity. That was treachery, intended or not.

Griffin and Zeke knew they were in trouble, knew they were playing with fire, but I wasn’t sure they knew how far their boss would go. When all was said and done at the end of this, they were the same as demons to their House. We all were.

The greater good, as they saw themselves, didn’t want us.

When I got home just after nightfall, the place was empty. The bar was closed and dark. Leo had hung his version of a Gone Fishing sign on the door—black marker on white cardboard that said GO THE FUCK AWAY. There are men of few words and then there are men of perfect words. Leo was the latter.

I let myself in, waving at a car parked across the street that held two Eden House agents. Trinity’s cover for Zeke and Griffin, and a check because it never paid to trust anyone too much, not even your own “double agents.” Our Mr. Trinity was so untrusting.

Flipping on the light behind the counter, I looked for a note. Not that Leo and I usually kept that close an eye on each other. We knew we could each take care of ourselves, and our social lives weren’t crossing paths. Leo’s taste in women—except for me—didn’t lead to double-dating. Amazons and bimbos with IQs half their cup size. Leo’s bad taste aside, this situation was a little different. I’d asked him to watch Zeke and Griffin. If he had left, there’d be a good reason. There’d be a note.

There was. It was held down by a bottle of bourbon and a shot glass. That wasn’t a good sign. I read it and sighed. I was lucky Leo had applied the antibiotic ointment to my back that morning, because it didn’t look like he’d be here to do it tonight or to bunk on the couch again. I folded the note on the words Family emergency. The dog is loose. Back tomorrow . In a way though, it was a good sign. Leo’s family was reaching out. It might only be to use him, but that was better than the past years of not speaking to or acknowledging him at all. And that dog was mean, mean enough that no one but Leo could deal with it, but mean or not, it was family too. They’d simply have to catch it before it ate anyone.

“Want to share the bourbon?”

I looked up to see Griffin on the stairs. “Still hanging around, you two?”

“Zeke still thinks I’m off my game. Besides, how could Zeke and I send Trixa reports back to Eden House if we’re not here to actually watch you?”

He still looked tired, gray smudges under his eyes. No, Zeke wouldn’t be happy with that, and an unhappy Zeke could rarely be budged. “So your fellow demon hunters outside don’t have a clue, then, I take it?” I retrieved another glass and poured him a shot as he sat down beside me.

“No.” He rolled the glass between his hands, then tossed it back. “You and Leo are damn good at keeping your thoughts and emotions under wraps. The agents outside aren’t as strong as Zeke and I. No one in the House is, and you two are the most self-possessed people I’ve come across. You don’t give off anything you don’t want to give off. I didn’t pick up on you while I was upstairs until you walked through the door. Normally I can pick up on someone I know or a demon a good three blocks away. Even now I’m not sure exactly how things went in San Diego, except you’re not disappointed.”

“I’m not disappointed. You’re right there.” I drank my own shot. “As for giving off thoughts and emotions, having a psychic and an empath hanging around the place will teach you better. Especially when it comes to Zeke. He wouldn’t see the harm in watching my last date in his head like it was rent-a-porn.”

“Your last date was that good, eh?” He held out his glass for another.

“Since the last man in my bed was you, drooling and unconscious, with Zeke nobly defending your virtue, not especially.” I poured, then stretched out the kinks from the two plane rides. My back protested and I gave myself another shot of my own. Purely medicinal.

“I don’t drool.” He tried for outrage, but with his weariness couldn’t quite pull it off.

“Maybe not, but your virtue did survive the night intact,” I pointed out, putting the bourbon away. It might be medicinal for me, but it would only make Griffin more tired. I didn’t need den mother Zeke down here trying to kick my ass.

“Thanks for that, Zeke,” he said glumly.

“He was very cute—in an unsocialized-pit bull kind of way.” I patted him on the back. “Now, pack up your things and move them down to the office. The two of you are sleeping on the couch. I want my bedroom back.”