Part 4 (1/2)

”Get Zeke!” I yelled right before the demon fell on me like the MGM Grand and Caesar's all rolled into one. I was good, I was fast, but the human body is only capable of so much. I felt the breath jolt out of my lungs, the rough asphalt sc.r.a.pe through my jacket and s.h.i.+rt as we slid up the alley floor like the after-math of a motorcycle wreck. Road rash from h.e.l.l . . . literally . . . and it hurt. d.a.m.n, did it hurt. It might've even come close to how the demon felt when the barrel of my Smith punctured its amber eye. There was a scream of a thousand tortured souls, which he'd probably personally recruited, and then, after I emptied six rounds into its skull, there was silence. Blissful silence.

Then I was covered in disgustingly warm black goo and the emergency door slammed open. A bouncer was framed there. He had no neck and from the steroid acne he had, probably b.a.l.l.s the size of raisins. ”Something going on out here?”

I pushed up on my elbow, the skin of my back a wildfire of pain at the motion. The green demon was gone. Either Griffin or Zeke had nailed it. Zeke was flat on his back while Griffin, who'd stripped off his jacket and wadded it to apply pressure to his partner 's chest, rapped orders into the cell phone cradled between shoulder and jaw. There was blood on his hands, two shotguns on the alley floor, and a gun in my fist.

”No. Not a thing.” I holstered the Smith slowly and painfully. ”We're good, studly. Thanks for asking.”

”Well . . . okay, then. Keep it down.” Dull, mean brown eyes, already half crossed, crossed further, and he slammed the door behind him, the only man I would actually encourage to trade in his soul. Cerebral cortexes were highly underrated in this town. ”Evolution,” I groaned as I sat up all the way. ”What a myth.”

”Trixa, you're hurt.” Griffin had let the phone fall, disconnected, and I knew Eden House's own personal ambulance was on the way. They had a medical unit at their headquarters and better doctors and equipment than the local hospitals had. They'd take care of Zeke. He'd be all right, be p.i.s.sing off Griff and shooting demons again in no time. He would be, because life without Zeke-sociopathically efficient, endearingly psychotic Zeke-wasn't going to happen. It simply wasn't.

I knelt beside him, my own b.l.o.o.d.y hands cupping his face. I'd made it there and touched his chest without remembering the motion of it. Much as I'd done with Kimano. ”Kit, you got to use your big gun. I can practically smell the testosterone on you.”

I called him Kit, a baby fox, back when he was fifteen for his fox-colored hair. I'd almost forgotten the nickname in the ten years that had pa.s.sed.

His eyes, that pale green, were hazy but managed to find me. ”Kit.” He dragged in several wet breaths. ”When . . . do I make . . . full-grown fox?”

”When you know thyself,” I said solemnly.

”What the h.e.l.l's that mean?” Each word was slow and said with b.l.o.o.d.y lips.

”Ask the fortune cookie company. It came with last night's takeout.” I gave him a smile, the best one I could manage when we were surrounded by shadows and the smell of copper and garbage.

A b.l.o.o.d.y hand gripped my shoulder and my attention. ”You're hurt,” Griffin repeated.

I already could hear the siren in the distance. Eden House didn't waste any time and they couldn't find me here. It wouldn't be good for Zeke and Griffin and it wouldn't be much better for me. ”Superficial. Skin's strictly optional, right?” I already had my own cell phone out. ”I'll call Leo. He can take me to the ER.” I stood, refusing to bite my lip, but the ”s.h.i.+ts.h.i.+ts.h.i.+t” I didn't bother to hold back. I backed up toward the alley mouth as I made the call, watching the guys-my guys. I watched as Zeke closed his eyes, but kept breathing. He kept breathing.

”We walked right into it,” Griffin said with dark disgust. He looked down at Zeke and back at me. ”Black demons. High-level demons. What were they doing here? Besides making us look like amateurs. Like complacent a.s.sholes. We screwed up.”

”No. We f.u.c.ked up.” It wasn't a word I used often, but the situation called for it. ”There's a difference. We won't do it again.” High-level demons like Solomon. Well, perhaps not like Solomon, no one was quite like him, but higher than the usual demons we dealt with. ”Like Solomon.” I couldn't make myself believe that was a coincidence. I stopped at the corner. ”Call me and let me know.” I didn't need to elaborate. Griffin knew. Then I rounded the corner and walked away, sticking to the shadows to hide the damage to my clothes and back . . . waiting for Leo.

No, I wasn't going to let Griff and Zeke follow Kimano into death.

Never.

Chapter 5.

Hospitals were not fun.

My family and I tended to be completely healthy up until the second we were dead; we went out old as h.e.l.l and wicked as they came. It was a nice quality; saved on health insurance. So this was my first visit to one of the places, and hopefully it would be the last. I waited four hours to get the dirt and bits of asphalt washed out of the raw stretch that was my back by a nurse who thought ”gentle touch” was the slogan for some sort of toilet paper. Leo sat with me the entire time, alternately shaking his head and muttering, ”This is what happens,” and eyeing a blond doctor walking by with intriguing shadows in her violet eyes. Secrets. Leo was a sucker for a secret. For that matter so was I, but certainly not now.

”Thanks for the 'I told you so,' Grandma. Pain pills. You have the pain pills?” I asked as I slowly slid on the scrub top the nurse had given me to replace my shredded one.

”I have the pain pills.” He shook a paper bag at me, having gone to the hospital pharmacy while they finished salving my back. ”And the antibacterial cream. They didn't have any anti-f.u.c.kup pills. Maybe we can check with a Canadian pharmacy online.”

”a.s.s.” I didn't put much into the insult. He was right. ”And you didn't even look when I put on the top. I know we're not going there, but you could at least boost the ego and look.”

His stoic lips twitched. ”I looked.”

”Thank you. It's been a b.i.t.c.h of a night. I lost my strategic skills, almost lost my friends. I'd hate to think I'd lost my s.e.x appeal too.” I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror over the sink in the curtained-off ER cubicle at Desert Springs Hospital. Smeared mascara, absent lipstick, curls stained and coated with demon residue at the ends. And a back that looked like roadkill, but at least that didn't show now. I smiled breezily at him. ”Pucker up and get some of this.”

He snorted. ”Tempting, but as you said, that's not us, and the fact that you smell like demon isn't helping. That”-he closed the magazine on his knee-”is not a good smell.”

At that moment, before I could take offense-and I would have-my cell phone rang. It was Griffin. ”Zeke?” I said immediately. ”Is he all right?”

Griffin's exhausted voice returned. ”He's on a ventilator, but should be off in a few days. He has a chest tube and has gotten two transfusions so far, but they say he'll be good as new in a few weeks. He'll be up and taking candy from babies in no time.”

To be fair, that kid had stolen that candy from some other child first. It wasn't his candy to begin with. Zeke was merely repossessing stolen goods. That he kept it taught a valuable lesson to the victim about being more careful not to leave your candy lying around.

And Zeke, well, Zeke liked his candy.

”Good,” I said, exhaling. ”Good. Now go to sleep yourself. And, Griffin, you know you're the strongest empath the House has. Work on it or it'll do you more harm than good.” Empaths were rare among humans and the Houses tended to recruit every one of them they could find, but none was close to Griffin's level.

”I know. I made things worse tonight. If you hadn't been there . . . s.h.i.+t.” He didn't want to think about that possibility and neither did I.

”Go to sleep,” I repeated. ”I'm going home now and doing the same.”

”Trixa,” he said quietly, slowly, ”will there be scars?”

It took me a second to grasp what he was asking. ”Oh. On my back?” I laughed, winced as the pain spiked through the cotton wool of the pain pills the nurse had already given me, then laughed again. ”Griff, I don't care about that. If a guy wouldn't want me because I had scars, why would I want his superficial son of a b.i.t.c.h a.s.s? Now go to bed, all right? And call me in the morning to give me an update on Zeke.”

”I will.” He hesitated. ”You're sure about the scars?”

”Sweetie, I'm not half as vain as you. Sleep,” I ordered, then disconnected.

”Vain enough to want me to sneak a look,” Leo drawled as he discarded the magazine and stood.

”Well, I'm not vain, but I'm not dead either,” I retorted, sliding off the gurney. The shock that ran from my feet to my back was bearable. Yes, pain pills were my friend.

In the car, Leo sat behind the wheel for a few silent seconds and then turned and kissed my temple. ”You have to be more careful,” he said soberly. ”You have to be on your game.”

”I know. I do. Those were high-level demons out there-but I was c.o.c.ky too.” I shook my head. ”It's not like me.”

He snorted and started the car. ”It's exactly like you. It always has been. And you've always gotten away with it. I hope this time's no different.”

Back at my apartment I couldn't shower without removing the medicine from my back; at least that was what grizzly-paw nurse had told me. I turned the taps until the water barely fizzled out and I washed my front, slowly and carefully. I bent forward and washed my hair, then stepped outside of the curtain wrapped around the claw-foot tub into a warm towel held by Leo. He made sure it draped only over the front of me and I held it to my shoulders. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I closed my eyes as he dried my hair with a smaller towel and combed it out, careful with the tangles, and I had a ton. The price you paid for wildly curly hair. That and humidity is never your friend. But soon it was its usual damp cascade of waves and corkscrew curls that followed a bath or shower.

He touched the pale gold skin beside my almond-shaped eye and then touched one of my curls, a deep black one with a streak of red and a hint of bronze, pulled at it lightly, and watched as the spiral sprang back. ”How can you be so many things at once and make it all work?”

I leaned forward and kissed him beside his mouth . . . kissed him for his help and a little more. ”Why are you asking silly questions?” I tugged at a long strand of his hair before sliding under the covers nude, lying on my stomach with the sheet and coverlet only up to my waist. I wanted nothing but air touching my back tonight.

I watched as Leo went to my closet for one of my many spare shotguns and sat in a chair a little too puffy for his tastes, I was sure, but the reds and golds of the cloth suited him. ”Babysitting?” I asked.

”You know Solomon was behind this.” He looked over the Browning, semi-automatic and self-loading. He nodded approvingly. It was new. An impulse buy from a bas.e.m.e.nt with a lot of unpleasant men, one of whom didn't appreciate me or my favorite copper-colored boots. He was so d.a.m.n lucky his blood came out of the fine st.i.tching or I might have gone back to that bas.e.m.e.nt to try out my new purchase.

Just to scare him, of course.