Rob Thurman - Trick of the Light

“Don’t even bring up my soul.” I followed him, bringing my gun with me. Why did I follow? Because at the moment, spending time with a degenerate killer demon was a breath of fresh air compared to the creature that had just sat at my bar. Oriphiel and Eligos were flip sides of the same coin, only Eli bothered to fake the charm. And charm as manipulation was deceitful, obviously, but it was better than assuming I was a servant to anyone, even Heaven. If an independent creature like me had a pet peeve—or had to pick one among many—that would be it.

“Trust me, I’d never be that clichéd.” The hazel eyes were more copper and green than brown and green. “How ’bout we play for those PJs, little girl? I have a whole set of fantasies already going about those. And spankings are way too vanilla to make it through the door.” He cracked his knuckles. “Do you have any teddy bears upstairs?”

“Don’t be sick or I’ll put the pool cue where you won’t like it.”

“‘Don’t be sick’? I’m fallen. Pure evil. Demonic spawn from the depths of Hell. Why do I have to keep reminding you of that? Do I need a tattoo or maybe a T-shirt? Tacky, but it would show my pecs. And as for the pool cue, you never know. I might more than like it.” He racked the balls, then waved his hand, flaring to life the overhead light. “Ladies first.”

I placed the Smith on the side of the table and chalked my cue. “We haven’t established what I get if I win.”

“You’ll really throw the PJs in the pot?” He rocked back on his heels. “I’m impressed. Okay, big spender, that deserves something equally worthy. You win and I’ll tell you who was behind nuking Eden House. That has to be worth a little full-frontal nudity.”

“How’d you . . . Never mind.” I liked to sleep free and unencumbered under my sleepwear. So sue me. “You know who did it? Solomon didn’t know.”

“Solomon told you he didn’t know. Don’t tell me you believed him.” He tossed his cue lazily from hand to hand. “I know you’re not that naïve.”

“I don’t believe anything a demon says, but he sounded less like a liar than usual.” I broke and proceeded to wipe the floor with his demonic ass. He barely got a chance to get on the table, poor baby. It was an honest game on his end, obviously, but only because he knew I wouldn’t live up to my end of the bet if he cheated. Actually, I wouldn’t have lived up to my end if he had won. He’d get a limb before he got my pajamas. In the end, it’d be less catastrophic for me. It wasn’t only demons who could lie.

“How’d you get so good? I’ve played pool longer than you’ve been alive.” He scowled. For the first time that sexy, crazy, roguishly cheerful smile was replaced with something real. Disappointment with a good dose of spite.

“Don’t pout. It doesn’t look good on a hell-spawn.” I boosted myself up to sit on the edge of the table. “And I’m good at everything. Physics included.” Good at everything except keeping my little brother alive, and winning a pool game with a demon didn’t quite make up for that, did it? I touched the black teardrop at my throat. No, it hardly did.

Eli had put away the spite, which I thought was most likely an act anyway. He wanted to tell me about Eden House. That was the reason he’d shown up. He might not have cheated to win, but he’d been prepared to cheat to lose. It simply turned out he didn’t have to. Quite a surprise for him. It was one reason I never hustled pool. It was too easy and rather boring to watch grown men sulk like little boys. It wasn’t worth the money for the win or the irritation as they tried to look down my shirt whenever I made a shot.

“Pool is more than physics,” Eli went on with outraged passion. I rolled a ball idly across the table, then played with the pool cue a few seconds before laying it beside me to watch the show. For all that Eli was a self-invention of pure ego, he was entertaining, and I didn’t mind the distraction. It was better than thinking of how no matter how many things I succeeded at, it couldn’t make up for my one heart-killing failure. “It’s more than a game. It’s war. It’s sex on green felt if you do it right. That quick is not doing it right.” I tuned out after that. He was amusing and fun and six feet of pure, unadulterated sex, but as much as I wanted to be distracted, it wasn’t happening.

“You aren’t afraid of me.” Abruptly his face was in mine, so close I felt his breath, saw the minute flecks of copper swimming in his now-ebony eyes, felt the fall of brindled brown hair against my forehead. “You should be,” he said softly. “Oh, little girl, you should be.”

“Why?” I didn’t pull back. This was my place, my territory, and nobody would make me afraid here. Nobody. “You can’t kill me. You’d lose the Light.”

“Maybe. Maybe I can’t kill you.” The metallic flecks swirled. “But I could always torture you.” He lifted his upper lip and this smile was neither sexy nor amusing. “I’m good at that. First in my class. Plaques on the wall. And, even better, I really, really enjoy doing it.”

“And I’d tell you everything I know.” My eyes weren’t as copper as the flecks in his, but I had a feeling what lurked behind them was as dark as the blackness of his.

“Everything you know and every invention you could possibly scream from what was left of your throat.” His voice wasn’t human anymore.

“I have to say, this is your worst attempt at seduction yet.” I nipped his full lower lip and then rammed the pool cue through his stomach. I missed the spine . . . on purpose. At that level it wouldn’t have killed him and the effect of two feet of polished and gore-stained wood coming out of his back was showier. I liked showy. It tended to make lessons stick with the one on the receiving end. When he was comparing pool to everything except a game, I’d removed the tip and ferrule from my personal cue to reveal a nice sharp metal point beneath it. This turned a perfectly good pool cue into an even better spear, and if Eli had been too busy showing how sexy and clever he was to notice what I was doing, well . . . at least he was still sexy. Or would be once he cleaned up.

He stepped back and glowered at the length of wood impaling him. “You just get bitchier and bitchier all the time, don’t you?” But it was said with reluctant admiration. If Eli was too fast for a bullet to hit, he was certainly fast enough to avoid a pool cue through the abdomen. But when you’re strutting your demonic stuff for a woman, getting turned on with the torture talk, and carrying an ego the size of Hell itself, you do make the occasional mistake. He flicked a finger against the polished wood with a light thunk. “Excessive violence doesn’t go well with the footy pajamas. It’s a behavioral and fashion faux pas all rolled into one.”

I held on to the cue. As long as I held on to it, he was held to Earth in his physical form, although he could have turned demon if he’d wanted. But he’d still be pinned like a dead bug in an insect collector ’s display case. “And the threatening me with torture, that was entirely kosher?”

He held his arms wide as his eyes turned from black and copper to penny and forest hazel. “At least I’m dressed for it. You have to give me that.” He was. Black shirt. Black pants. Black jacket thrown to the side.

“Yeah, you’re the demonic Darth Vader. I’m beyond impressed.” I turned my head to Griffin and Zeke who’d been sitting on the bottom step of the stairs with the door propped wide for quite some time now. The angel might’ve been too high-level for them to sense and I knew Eli was, but they could hear. As soon as the pool game started, they’d come down, both with shotguns and bad morning attitudes. “What do you think, guys? Should we—”