Trick Of The Light Part 12

Most, like Griffin and Zeke, had their own houses, condos, or apartments, but the House kept a minimum of twenty members on-site at all times with five guards watching the building and grounds from nightfall until morning. But those were details I'd heard from the guys. My first official look I'd gotten at the place was when I'd been kidnapped the other night.

The look I was getting now was far different.

From opulence, armories, and medical facilities to blood and death. It was a war zone and Eden House had lost this battle. Once I ran through the gaping, double front doors, I could see that. They were still fighting it, trying to stand their ground, but it was over. If the demons had a flag, they would've been minutes from planting it. And there wasn't a single angel in sight. Maybe that didn't shake the faith of those still alive and fighting, but it p.i.s.sed me off. Do our dirty work, fight our earthly battles, die for us, but consider our number unlisted. Work miracles for us, but don't expect the same in return. Those days are over. Our convenience, not yours. But still stick us on top of your Christmas trees. We like that.

There were flames flickering inside, concealed from the outside by steel blinds, and there were too few people to put them out. No one was about to call 911 either. Eden House took care of Eden House business, even if it meant that Eden House would burn.

Human bodies littered the foyer. Huge with arched doorways, the s.p.a.ce now had its marble floor marred with the dead, blood, and puddles of black ichor that had once been demons. I hesitated. Should I search the ground floor first or head up? The sudden voices from above made that decision for me. I ran up the wide stairs that opened off the foyer. The staircase split off near the first floor, curving to the left and right. I took the right and when I reached the top, I s.n.a.t.c.hed a quick glance around the rotunda. Still nothing but dead bodies, some hanging over the wrought-iron rail. The voices had stopped and this was getting me nowhere fast. "Griffin!" I shouted. "Zeke!"

I heard it then-not Zeke or Griffin, but the clatter of claws behind me. I turned, twisted sideways, and slammed my boot into the midsection of a fungus green demon. Bright red eyes flared with irritation as the metal-enforced heel pa.s.sed through the softer belly scales and into firm flesh. Then the force of the kick threw him down the stairs tumbling head over tail, but he was back in seconds-this time flying. I didn't get to see demons fly often. Despite their wings, they tended to keep close to the ground when they fought, slithering like snakes and lizards. Maybe flying reminded them too much of what they'd once been and had. Then again, I might a.s.sume too much. They might not miss the grace and glory. Unlike Solomon who said he did, but he was the only one saying so.

Being evil for so very long, could you ever be what you were before that? Would you even want to? The great thing about being evil is you don't care that you're evil. As a matter of fact, you probably enjoyed the h.e.l.l out of it . . . no pun intended.

The downside of being evil is when someone like me shoots your dragon wings to tatters before ramming a gun muzzle in your open, fanged mouth and liquefying your brain. I grabbed another clip from my bag, slammed it home, and started searching for the voices I'd heard earlier. I was about to call for Griffin again, when I heard him. I ran, following the circular hall. Another demon came at me. I hit the floor and rolled as it pa.s.sed in a rush over me. Swiveling, I shot it in the back of the head, turned, and kept running until I came to what I vaguely remembered as a banquet room for those who lived in the house. Chandeliers and the finest china, it was all crushed to ivory splinters and crystal dust now. That dust glittered along wings and snake heads, giving the demons the air of something else to be put on a Christmas tree-a very dark, gothic Christmas tree.

There were ten demons and Zeke and Griffin were facing them while standing back to back. They'd been here fighting long enough they'd gone through all their ammo and were now down to knives. That didn't make them any less dangerous. Zeke was a stone-cold demon killer with a combat knife, because he had no fear, not for himself. No fear of pain or being hurt or even death. Zeke's mind didn't allow mult.i.tasking. When he was fighting, he was fighting. Period. The only other thought he was capable of was to protect his friends. Kill and protect. In the heat of battle, nothing else existed for him. The j.a.panese Bushido philosophy said the greatest warrior was one who didn't fear his own death. Zeke went a step further with not even knowing that he could die. Because he lived in the moment, he didn't have enough focus left over to consider mortality.

He was in that moment now. He was covered with slashes of demonic claws, but he was also covered from the waist down in black demon blood. As I stepped into the room, he had just slashed a demon's neck so forcefully with the serrated edge of his blade that the spinal column split and the demon became a black rain.

Griffin was deadly himself, quick as a demon, and smart enough to think like them if he had to-to antic.i.p.ate their moves. Zeke couldn't mult.i.task at all, but Griffin was the king of it. He rammed his blade through the eye of one demon, while using his other hand to slash an identical blade across the gut of the brown demon hurtling toward him from the side. A ma.s.s of entrails spilled free. It wouldn't kill the creature, but it was enough to have it tumbling back temporarily.

My boys the killers. I couldn't have been more proud.

But ten demons . . . now eight and a half. And scattered among the green and brown lesser demons were two gray and one the cyanotic purple-blue of a strangled corpse. Higher demons. Thanks to Solomon, we now knew these were the ones to watch out for-not demon-lite. Those wouldn't be so easy to kill.

"Guys!" I tossed them two Glock .40s out of my messenger bag. Mary Poppins had her endless supply of goodies in her purse. I had an endless supply of goodies too, and they were more useful than tea and freshly baked biscuits. They both dropped one knife apiece and caught the guns. I stepped back out into the hall to give them a clean line of fire and called as I did, "You, grape gecko, want to play?"

The suffocation-colored demon whipped around and undulated itself toward me with a speed that made a viper look as if it were moving through three feet of tar. It hit me. There was no way to avoid it. No way for a human, at least. Here was another one that if he wasn't in Solomon and Eli's league, he was d.a.m.n close. I did manage to dive to the side quickly enough that although it clipped my side, it didn't hit me head-on. It did flip me over the rail, the iron hitting me in the ribs. I caught myself with one arm hooking around an arabesque. I hung in midair, my shoulder creaking, and I discovered that my Barney-colored new demon friend might have been almost as fast as Solomon and Eli, but it wasn't as smart. It perched on the rail above me, baring smoky quartz teeth at me in an arrogantly rapacious grin. It was nice of him to savor the moment. It gave me the opportunity to take its head off at the shoulders. The sound suppressor on the MP5 was only good for one clip. These shots rang loud and true. No matter how big the compound was, someone was bound to hear that and call the police. I coughed as the smoke billowed more thickly and wiped at my dripping face to clear my vision of what had once been a demon who'd thought a little too much of himself.

Tossing the gun up and over the rail, I used both hands to follow after it. I snagged one foot in a curl of metal and vaulted over the rail with several feet to spare. A member of Eden House stood there, a shocked look on his pale face. "Yoga," I explained. "It's good for more than making your way through the Kama Sutra."

But it turned out his shock wasn't for me and my gymnastic ways. As I picked up my gun, he said numbly, "They're dead. Everyone's dead." He had dark blond hair, rumpled from the battle and darkened by the smoke, and a face marked with demon blood and devastation. It made me wish I'd kept my smart mouth shut.

"Not everyone." I grabbed his arm and pulled him into the room I'd only just left. I'd heard the barrage of shots. When I pa.s.sed through the door, I saw what I expected-a floor awash in dark fluid, the remains of the brown and green demons. The two gray ones were still very much in the game. That changed when they heard us come in behind them. One of them turned in time to see me pull the trigger. It turned to smoke before the bullets left my weapon. The other demon left on its own, disappearing as well. I didn't know if it was from fear or the fact that its job was as good as completed. From what I could tell, I was standing with the last of Eden House Las Vegas-Zeke, Griffin, and this poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d whose own gun slipped from his hand to fall to the floor.

"Our house has fallen." He rubbed his eyes against the smoke that continued to thicken. "How could that happen?"

Griffin moved up, turned the man around, and pushed him back out into the hall and toward the stairs. "We have to get out, Thomas. The authorities won't be a problem, but burning to death will. Let's go."

The authorities wouldn't be a problem. That meant one thing. "Trinity wasn't here, then," I stated as I followed them, coughing again. We all were. If we weren't so close to the front door, there wouldn't have been enough oxygen to make it. If Trinity wasn't here, he would definitely clear things with the Vegas authorities. They either worked for him and Eden House or he owned them, one way or the other.

"No," Griffin said as he continued to guide the dazed Thomas as we clattered down the stairs. "Neither is Goodman. They left for Miami. A meeting of the heads of the Houses." So they were alive, and an alive Trinity was capable of covering up anything.

"The rats always know when a ship is sinking," Zeke grunted.

"You think they knew this was coming?" I reached behind me to take Zeke's wrist and pull him along faster. You'd think the man was meandering down to the kitchen for a snack.

"No. I think the Universe sucks. The d.i.c.ks are eating steak and drinking wine while their soldiers die." Zeke saw the warning glance Griffin shot from him to Thomas, but I didn't think Thomas heard a word as we pa.s.sed out of the house into clean night air. He was young, so young that he had to be newly recruited. His survival had been nothing more than a fluke or maybe he'd hidden during the battle. If so, I didn't blame him. He looked like he'd never fought a single demon, much less a horde of them.

Outside we discovered there were a few more left, both demons and survivors like Thomas. The human survivors were only a handful, but they were holding their own for the moment. It was a very small and pa.s.sing moment, though. They might have been fighting, but they were seconds away from being lunch meat. The three of us moved toward them and the ring of demons that surrounded them as Thomas fell to his knees and vomited. If they rebuilt Eden House here, I didn't think he'd be a part of it. All the empathic or telepathic talent in the world doesn't make you a fighter. Genes, a screwed-up childhood, or training did that, but sometimes none of the three worked. Thomas would never be a warrior and I also suspected Thomas would never sleep through the night again.

But there were more urgent matters right now-to keep what remained of the House alive. The demons spotted us as we moved up behind them. The circle opened as half of them scattered to face us, while the other half moved in on the other six survivors. I aimed the MP5 at the two demons rushing me when Solomon appeared between us.

"Stop!" He was in human form as always, but his voice was anything but. It was the roar of a lion-the largest and most lethal one on the plains.

The demons hesitated, but the next thundering "Go!" left nothing but wisps of murky vapor floating in the air. Solomon turned to me. "I didn't do this."

I scrubbed the rest of the demon blood from my face with the sleeve of my shirt. "You think I care? You think whether or not you did makes a difference? Do you think I even believe you?" I checked my clip automatically and avoided grim gray eyes. You could've even said they were sympathetic . . . if you were that gullible. I never had been. I couldn't afford to be. "Because we both know if you had a reason to take out Eden House, you would."

"You think the Light is my reason." He stepped closer, close enough to rest a hand on my arm. I heard Zeke growl, but Griffin must've held him back. "I'm more subtle in my tactics. Ma.s.s slaughter's not my way. Murder isn't my way. I'm different than the rest. I have control. I would not do this."

"What about Eligos?" I demanded as the warm thumb rubbed the tender skin on the underside of my arm.

"He could . . . easily, but," he added with obvious reluctance, "I don't know that he did. I've heard nothing about a plan to destroy Eden House. All know this is my territory. No one beneath me would attempt anything like this without consulting me first. With my equals, I think I would have heard rumors. Gossip is a minor sin after all. We embrace it. This may have come from above."

"There are demons above you and Eli besides the big guy?" I pulled from his grip, but not as quickly as I should have. I couldn't deny the warmth felt good against my skin. "I'm surprised you'd admit it."

"We have brothers who couldn't come to Earth without setting the ground to flame beneath each foot-step. Whose gaze would kill anything it fell on." His lips curled cynically. "Once far above archangels, now princes in h.e.l.l."

"And you're still waiting on the promotion." I shoved my gun in my bag. I could hear the distant wail of sirens.

"A half million souls wouldn't get me there." The sirens were closer. "I'll find out what I can." He was gone as unexpectedly as he came. The sirens were closer. Our vanishing act wasn't as darkly mystical as Solomon's had been. Ours was more of the piling into my car, spinning in a circle, and peeling out of the driveway. I took my boys and the rest of the survivors ran to cars of their own. Trinity could deal with the explanation of the dead bodies-if he had to bother to explain at all. Eden House had tentacles in all levels of government, local and federal. For all I knew, they'd invented the concept of government . . . they or Lucifer.

The flames flickered in my rearview mirror, reminding me of all the times we'd burned Solomon's club to the ground. Things come and things go, but one thing remained constant: Fire consumed it all.

Chapter 12.

They had been mostly dead when Griffin and Zeke had gotten to the House, their brothers and sisters in arms, Griffin told me that night while we'd cleaned our slashes and slices. He'd told me while Zeke had said nothing at all-not since we'd left the ruins of Eden House. They'd lost another home. They'd realized it was gone when Trinity had found out about their bringing outsiders into Eden House business-their "calling" from his point of view. But knowing it and seeing it burn before you, that was different. And knowing it and seeing those you'd fought side by side with for years die nearly to the man, that was so beyond different, and it had hit Zeke hard. A dead baby, dead companions . . . it was a lot to lose in such a short lifetime. Only twenty-five years old, and Zeke had already seen so much death-and considered himself the cause of a part of it. The fall of Eden House was pain all in itself and a painful reminder of what had happened in that bathtub ten years ago.

Dead and gone, all of it.

"We fought, but it was too late." Griffin had slid a washcloth down both arms, washing away red and black blood. "Too many were already gone. They'd called all of us back home, but there were too many demons for them." That had to be a lot of demons . . . except for the newer recruits like Thomas, all those that served Eden House had been good fighters. Not Griffin and Zeke good, but d.a.m.n good nonetheless.

As for home, the two of them obviously never really considered their house home. It had been Eden House to a certain extent, and here. All in all, they certainly spent more time at my bar than Eden House or their place combined.

"This is home," I'd reminded him firmly, and after I'd used it first, I let them use my bath to get cleaned up. They'd fought much longer than I had in the battle and had been banged up more as a consequence. So, giving person that I was-a giving person who was probably never going to reclaim her own softly comfortable bed, I had ended up spending the night on the couch in Leo's office without a single person in sight to spoon with.

Sometimes you needed it-the touch, the comfort. Just another living creature who cared for you. Sometimes you got it.

Sometimes you didn't.

I woke up with a crick in my neck and my gun under the pillow I'd brought from downstairs the night before. Leo was still gone. I knew it the second I opened my eyes. His family trouble must've been more than he'd expected. Or they'd lured him into an anger management intervention he hadn't needed for a long time now. Now there was a mental picture. Leo in a circle of relatives all trying to turn him from wolf to lamb. He'd never be a lamb, but he was a good wolf now . . . or far less likely to bite anyway. Although getting his family to believe that wouldn't be easy. They'd be trying to put the more mellow carnivore in a pink rhinestone collar. Poor Leo.

I rolled up and off the couch, stretched, and looked down at the rumpled pajamas. Not silk, my standby favorite, but a present from Griffin and Zeke from last Christmas-thin cotton footy pajamas covered with nursery rhyme figures. For the Mother Goose in me, they'd said, as I was always trying to take care of them. I couldn't deny they were comfortable. I also couldn't deny that when I walked out into the bar, wild halo of bed hair, cotton jammies and all, I might not have looked my best. Stunning was definitely out the window.

Not that the angel sitting at the bar seemed to care. He, on the other hand, was immaculate in human form. They always were, the few I'd seen, just like the demons. This one had straight silver hair to his shoulders. The gleam was a stark contrast to his younger face. His eyes were the same pale silver and empty. Cool and disinterested. If he had a single emotion in him, I'd let him have for free that gla.s.s of red wine he was drinking.

"If you're here looking for a virgin, I can't help you." I put the gun under the counter and rooted around in one cabinet for a breakfast bar. It didn't look like I was going to have time for much else today.

He ran a smoothing hand down the light gray suit and ignored my humor or blasphemy, depending on your point of view. "Eden House Las Vegas is no more."

I opened the wrapper and took a bite of chocolate and granola. It didn't sit particularly well as the memory of the dead bodies from last night hit me. "You could say that. Thanks for the help, by the way. It really turned the tide." I took another bite, this one grimly savage. "b.a.s.t.a.r.d. They were your followers and you let them die without lifting a finger to help them. Or a feather."

He looked over his shoulder as if he expected his hidden wings were showing before turning back to face me. "They serve Heaven. Heaven does not serve them."

"That makes it better. Thanks for that. How about they're in a better place now. Don't forget that one." I discarded the granola bar. I couldn't stomach it. Demons were bad enough, killers and liars through and through, but most angels were cold. Not all of them, but most of them. Superior egos carved from ice. They had the charisma in human form that the demons did, when they wanted, but the majority of them rarely used it. You could almost understand demons before you could an angel. I glared at him and folded my arms, equally disinterested in him as he pretended to be in me.

"If they lived lives of purity and servitude, then, yes, they are." He sipped his ruby-colored wine. "I am Oriphiel."

I had a feeling the surfer angel who had bothered to toss the appeal and magnetism our way in the desert had been demoted for his failure to get the fragment of the Light that I'd beaten him to. "Middle management, lower management, I could care less." I dismissed him, although I knew that the name Oriphiel meant he was an archangel. So it was written. Somewhere. You needed a flowchart to keep it all straight.

From the looks of this guy, he considered the t.i.tle of archangel and himself to be pretty hot s.h.i.t-certainly not one to take orders. He gave them. "Go find Trinity," I told him. "He belongs to you. I don't."

"Trinity is returning today. We will speak, but the Light is too important to be left to an unsupervised human, even one of Eden House." He said "human" as if he were saying "pet" and, worse yet, the kind of pet that takes a year to learn how to use the cat door and another year to figure out the flap moves both ways. His pale face was as beautiful as marble and as unmoving. I wished Lenore were there to give him a lesson in pet respect, but I was here to give him the human version.

"If you think I'm going to put up with your hanging around, you're wrong. Trinity's putting me on a leash is more than enough." I took the gla.s.s of wine out of his hand. "And cops drink for free. Stuck-up pigeons don't."

"The Light is for Above. Even one such as you couldn't think it was better in the hands of the Abyss. Trinity says you know what it does. Can you imagine what will happen to the earth if we fail to obtain it? You will be at their mercy."

"From what I could tell last night, we already are. I think it's your feathered a.s.ses you're worried about. I don't think you give much of a d.a.m.n about us, only about spiting h.e.l.l."

"You have no idea what Heaven is, no idea what we are. You couldn't understand if you wanted to," he said serenely.

So smug, so d.a.m.n superior. I poured the rest of the wine into the sink, but it was a struggle not to pour it over his silver head instead. "I've read the Bible. I think I know a thing or two." I had read the Bible as well as several other holy books. I was familiar, you could say, with quite a few religions. Mama made sure her children were educated on a wide variety of subjects. When you traveled the world, she said, you needed to know how to stay out of trouble or how to get into it, depending on your mood.

"You're like a worm given a molecule of a blade of gra.s.s, an electron microscope, and expected to extrapolate what the world looks like . . . its mountains and oceans, lakes and rivers, trees and plains, and all the creatures that inhabit it. The Bible"-he steepled his fingers-"that is your molecule. And you, the worm, you can't even find the microscope."

"Maybe that would've come across better with a blare of trumpets or if you'd descended from the sky surrounded by a veil of golden light, but you know what it sounded like just now?" I rested my elbows on the counter, steepled my fingers in the mirror image of his, and rested my chin on them as I faced him. "It sounded like you just s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g yourself, because there is no way in h.e.l.l, or heaven for that matter, that I'll ever help you now."

He frowned. Finally, a ripple of emotion. "You have no choice."

"I refer you to that molecule you were talking about on the subject of free will. So when I tell you to kiss my a.s.s, it's only because G.o.d was kind enough to give humans that choice." Although truthfully the Bible, theology, and Solomon were all contradictory on the subject, I didn't feel the need to bring that up. I was free and I knew it. I flattened my hands on the bar and was about to tell him to get the h.e.l.l out of my bar when h.e.l.l decided to tell him itself.

"You really do let anyone in this place, darlin'. You need a good exterminator." A coil of black smoke reared behind the angel to form into Eligos. He draped a black-clad arm over the shoulders covered in gray and leaned heavily, his lips touching the silver hair. "Oriphiel, pal, buddy, friend o' mine. How's it hanging?" His other hand dropped into the angel's lap. "Or is it like the old days when you didn't invest in that part when you came to Earth? Too afraid of temptation. I have to say, Ori, you were right. The temptation is so consuming, so d.a.m.n good, you never would've made it." He lifted his hand back up with a sigh of disappointment. "Yep, like the old days. Still not packing. You should give it a try, at least once. You are missing out like you would not believe. Let me tell you. . . ." His lips moved to Oriphiel's ears. I couldn't hear what he said to the angel, but I saw the results.

It was more than a ripple of emotion this time. I saw shock, distaste, and even a trace of fear before Oriphiel was gone, not in a coil of smoke, but a blaze of light bright enough to trigger a headache. Great. I rubbed my forehead. "You could've warned me. Sungla.s.ses would've been nice."

"Show-offs. They don't get to do much else these days, what with humans fighting in their place. All bark and no bite. No more flaming swords. No more throwing down of the rebels. Warriors of G.o.d? Ha! p.u.s.s.ies," he snorted. "And you know what? I think they stuck it to themselves but good. I think they miss it. Who wouldn't? We might lie to everyone else, Miss Trixa, but they lie to themselves and that makes them equally as dangerous as us." He grinned. "Not that I'm dangerous. Never. Just very, very interesting." He jerked his head toward the pool table. "Let's play a game." He tossed his leather jacket over a stool and flashed that c.o.c.ky, s.e.xy smile I was inexplicably getting used to. Then I pictured the dead bodies from last night and put that smile into perspective. The teeth of a carnivore. Period. Unrepentant and loving every minute of his blood-soaked existence. "But we have to bet. There's no point in playing a game if there's nothing to win . . . or lose."

"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 a.s.suming 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 cliched." 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 sp.a.w.n from the depths of h.e.l.l. 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 b.a.l.l.s, 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 unenc.u.mbered 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 naive."

"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 a.s.s. 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 s.e.xy, 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 h.e.l.l-sp.a.w.n." 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 pa.s.sion. 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 s.e.x 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 s.e.x, 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 n.o.body would make me afraid here. n.o.body. "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 s.e.xy nor amusing. "I'm good at that. First in my cla.s.s. 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 s.e.xy and clever he was to notice what I was doing, well . . . at least he was still s.e.xy. Or would be once he cleaned up.

He stepped back and glowered at the length of wood impaling him. "You just get b.i.t.c.hier and b.i.t.c.hier 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 h.e.l.l 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 att.i.tudes. "What do you think, guys? Should we-"

"Shoot him," they said simultaneously, interrupting me.

"You don't seem to be as charismatic as you think you are, Eli," I commented. "Isn't that a shame?" I was still sitting on the pool table, but I was ready to jump to the floor and try to hold him here if he decided to fight. There was more room between us now, about two feet. Even for a demon, a makeshift spear through the guts will have you staggering back a pace or two.

The smile was back . . . as c.o.c.ky, and almost as warm. If he was p.i.s.sed, and I imagined he was, he hid it well. Then again when you claim to have been around millions of years, how mind-numbingly boring that would be. A few thousand years, sure. Maybe even ten, but after that, things were bound to get boring. Eli considered me surprising and I don't think he was often surprised. "If you shoot me, I can't tell you who ordered Eden House smote to the ground. 'Smote.' I haven't gotten to use that word since my days upstairs. I kind of miss it. Lots of pomp and circ.u.mstance in a word like that." He tapped his chin as the smile became sly. "Downstairs we just say slaughter or ma.s.sacre or team-building exercise."