Part 6 (1/2)

It was dark by the time we reached John Wilbur's short, squat mobile home. There was a bright generator light flooding the place and the sand around it. In that sand someone had literally drawn the line. And it surrounded the trailer in a circle twice as brilliant as the generator light. My sungla.s.ses were in the glove compartment, although I wished I had them back as I shaded my eyes for a better look. Flakes-minute flakes of gla.s.s or crystal made up the circle, and the fact they glowed almost as bright as the sun said one thing and one thing only.

The Light. They came from the Light.

Leo mirrored my frown. ”Someone knows something.”

There was the faintest of sounds behind us. A whisper of sand. A rustle of cloth against cloth.

”Our Mr. Wilbur is clever . . . for a human.” The tone was so bored. So very ”have been there and had a stained-gla.s.s window designed in my image.” So ”Why oh why must I suffer the indignity of discoursing with the unfaithful and the sinning?” I turned and considered shooting the angel dead center in his chest. It wouldn't be the first time I'd shot one. But I knew if I did, he would bleed a ray of luminous white light for a few seconds; then he would be whole again. It would be all for nothing. While the angel I had once shot had deserved it, I wasn't sure this one did simply for being annoyingly superior and in the right place at the right time-when I wished he weren't.

”Look at this. Temptation in the desert, but it's not the devil this time-only a parakeet with delusions of grandeur.” I kept the gun aimed at him. Truthfully, I wasn't sure you could kill an angel. Then again, maybe the same would hold for them as held for demons. If you could keep their bodies anch.o.r.ed on Earth and blow out their brains . . . After all, as Solomon had said, he was an angel too-simply a fallen one. Seemed what would work for one, destruction-wise, would work for the other. I'd never had the need to put it to the test. Yet. But if he got between me and the Light, that might change.

And where did angels and demons go when they ”died”? Because it was death, at least for a demon. They didn't go back down to h.e.l.l for a little detention and pop up again later. At least, I'd never seen one that had. Once the brain was gone, it was gone for good. What then? Per their doctrine, there was no place higher to step up to for the angels and no lower for the demons, right?

Curious.

So was death really and truly death for them? The nothingness of nonexistence?

Maybe I'd ask this one. ”Hey,” I started, until a familiar elbow impacted my side. Leo. He knew exactly what I was thinking. He usually did.

”Sorry.” I gave in, not graciously, but I did give in. A great woman had once said, The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. That did describe me down to the molecular level, but, sadly, there was a time and place. This was not it. I nudged my thoughts back to the more important matter at hand: the Light.

The angel that was here to fetch it was a man in the same way that demons are men. Although, to give credit, demons were women too. Same MO. Female demons were just as drop-dead gorgeous as the males, sweating unbelievable s.e.x appeal, the eye of a hurricane of pheromones-the whole nine yards. Demons were equal-opportunity salespeople. We'll take your soul, male, female; bring whatever you have and we'll be whatever you want. But now that I thought about it, the few angels I'd seen had always been male. It made me a little sorry that I hadn't shot this one after all. s.e.xist pigeon.

Instead, I asked, ”What do you want here?” I knew very well what he wanted. ”Never mind,” I dismissed him. ”Whatever it is, you're not getting it. Take a hike, or a flight, and don't look back. Turning into a pillar of salt would be the least of your concerns.”

I hadn't seen his wings, but now I noticed a s.h.i.+mmer of dark purple-blue light hit a curve, almost as if the wings were there but made of gla.s.s. Solemn, promising eyes of the same twilight color peered through his white-blond bangs. ”Trixa. Leo. We've been waiting for you.” Then he smiled and I was in that twilight . . . a glorious spring one, warm and silken. Surrounded by it. Caressed.

I looked over to see a faint sweat over the cords of Leo's neck. ”Really?” I said, surprised. ”You go that way now and again? I had no idea.”

”No, I don't. And you do have an attention span. Use it,” he gritted, flus.h.i.+ng lightly before turning his head to the right. ”Well, s.h.i.+t,” he said in disgust.

Solomon, our Solomon, stepped out of the darkness there. I knew he was up to his neck in this-might've even killed Jeb himself. It hadn't looked like a demon kill-had lacked a certain level of violence and definitely didn't smell like demon-but it wasn't beyond him to fake it to look otherwise. I had no idea who had done Jeb in, Eden House or a demon. Either way, Solomon was in the game; that I'd known for some time. ”Whatever this molting chicken has to tell you isn't worth hearing,” he said, giving a dismissive nod at the angel.

”That's probably true. It's probably true about you too.” I met his gray eyes as I took a step toward the curve of light in the sand.

”If that's what you imagine it to be, do you think it will be that easy?” he asked with a shadow of amused arrogance underlying the question.

”You never know. Not until you ask nicely.” I did ask-in my mind. I asked quite courteously if I might enter. I heard nothing, saw no mystical signs, but took a chance anyway and stepped over. I felt nothing more than a warm tingle that s.h.i.+mmered from my head to my toes-not to say that wasn't enjoyable and it definitely beat disintegration or slamming into an invisible wall, which the angel promptly did. ”Look at that, Solomon,” I said, giving the angel a sa.s.sy and unrepentant smile as he hauled his holy a.s.s back to his feet. ”See where a little politeness will get you? A nice invitation-that's what.” I tossed my gun to Leo. It was allowed through the same as I had been. ”Stay out here and play duck shoot?”

”Be happy to,” he said with a cold smile, and pointed the barrel at Solomon's head.

I rapped politely at the metal door and bent my head to climb in. John Wilbur was a tiny man sitting on an equally tiny orange and brown couch, his small hands clasped as he rocked back and forth. The desert had withered him to a raisin of a man. Small, dark, and wrinkled.

”I'm Buddhist, you know. Picked it up a few years ago,” he said immediately, his voice four times bigger than he was. ”They ain't right. I have my own ways. They ought to be leaving me alone. The two of them. Trying to talk me into coming out. Talking and talking and lying and giving me the smooth.” The skin around his small eyes spiderwebbed as he gave me a snaggle toothed grin. ”Tossed one of my Buddhas through the window at the one. Surfer boy.” That would be our bleached-blond angel. ”He had a dent in his head for a good minute.” That was good to know. Things could leave our bubble of protection, but nothing could enter, not without permission. Although I didn't think it was Wilbur 's permission I had received, I thought that was via the tiny bit of the Light left here, and it was only a tiny bit. From what I'd heard of the Light, this display was a firecracker compared to the atomic bomb. Heaven, h.e.l.l, and Earth weren't moving against one another for the ability to protect a trailer.

I looked down at Wilbur, holding a cheerfully green ceramic Buddha in his hand. The place was littered with them. Fat, laughing Buddhas. Skinny, solemn Buddhas. One was even in a hula skirt. I liked that about Buddha. Throughout history he had never minded a laugh at his own expense. He had never minded any good-natured laughter at all. We should all be that happy.

”Good for you.” I smiled. ”Toss me one and let's see if I can get the dark guy in the high-roller suit.”

I missed Solomon with the green Buddha, but only because he turned to dark mist and sank into the ground. ”Cheater,” I said under my breath as he immediately rose again.

”You don't throw like no girl.” Mr. Wilbur tried for another grin, but it wobbled. ”I'm not getting out of this, am I?” He shook his head. ”The b.a.s.t.a.r.d should've warned me first, but ain't no way I'd take it then, right? Even with his talk of a better world. Making things right. Crazy old b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Couldn't understand a d.a.m.n word he said half the time.” He sighed and wiped at an eye. ”Twitches now and again,” he mumbled. Straightening, he squared his small shoulders and said, ”Jeb said after he had time to hide that d.a.m.n thing away, it'd be no problem. No reason for anyone to come looking for him and it would be safe. The Light would be safe. Well, it might've been gone, but he wasn't. Neither am I.”

I didn't know how whoever found Jeb had done it. Whether it was through Wilder Hun, probably, or some other way. But I suspected they had found Wilbur precisely the same way Leo and I had. Demons and angels had been lurking out of sight at Jeb's wake, avoiding the warm lemonade, but getting the same information we had. And wings made better time than my car. Popping in and out of existence wherever you pleased was a quick commute too.

”Who came looking for Jeb?” I interrupted. ”Who killed him?”

He shrugged listlessly and shook his head. ”I dunno. Doesn't matter now anyway, 'cause here we are. I don't have it. Jeb showed it to me, s.h.i.+ny gewgaw that it was, but he didn't give it to me. Not really. They won't believe me though, those out there.”

”No.” I met his eyes squarely. Wilbur wasn't completely correct about the Light. A minute amount of it had stayed here, but at least Jeb hadn't given him up. It wouldn't have been much comfort, so I kept the thought to myself. I also thought that whoever had killed Jeb could've had a telepath with him and it wouldn't have mattered. A little Light here, a little Light also in Jeb. I imagined it had left enough of itself in him to hide any information he had on its location. Pretty smart for a rock. Less smart on me as I still didn't know who'd killed Jeb.

”And once those out there find out I don't have it, they'll kill me,” Wilbur said bitterly. Then he straightened to tell me earnestly, ”But first they could find out.” He touched his head. ”The Light, I might not have it, but it leaves its voice, like an echo, you know? A trail of bread crumbs to follow, just like the fairy tale. To find where Jeb hid it. He told me he pa.s.sed the voice on and whoever has it will pa.s.s it on. I thought he was talking crazy until the Light talked to me too.”

”You're a bread crumb?” I asked skeptically.

He tried for another grin and failed. ”Yeah. Not the worst thing I've been in my life.”

”So you know where Jeb hid it?”

”No.” He shook his head. ”Wouldn't be much point to leaving a trail of bread crumbs if I did. And I guess you're who I've been waiting for. The Light let you in. That makes you good people. Good enough anyway, because I'm out of time. Hope you paid attention to that Hansel and Gretel story when you were little. Here's your way to the second crumb.” Before I could say anything, he slammed the palm of one hand against my forehead . . . and I felt it.

Felt the Light.

Felt the Life.

The inextricable twist and glitter of them both.

It didn't speak to me; there wasn't enough left of it there for that-not in Wilbur's mind and not in the faint castoff outside surrounding the trailer. There were just sensations. Warmth. Strength. A beckoning finger. And, lastly, the distinct feeling that I was the lesser of a few evils in the mix. Ah well, it wasn't the first time I'd been accused of that.

I rested on my sore back and rubbed my equally sore forehead from where the sheer energy of the Light had actually knocked me flat. As I rubbed, I looked up. The ceiling was interesting. Another Buddha poster with lotuses and a river, bright colors long faded and the serenity of a place far better than here.

”Now they'll hurt me like Jeb was hurt. You and your friend can try to stop them, but I think one way or another I won't be one of the winners.” Still on the couch, he looked down and scrubbed at his face.

No. He wouldn't be. Leo and I could get away in my car with the weapons we'd brought, depending on how many angelic and demonic reinforcements they brought in, but protect Wilbur too? Probably not.

”Demons and angels. Watched out for 'em my whole life,” he muttered. ”One to toss me into the pit and one to catch me. Now what? They torture and kill me like Jeb, leastwise the demons will. And then they have my soul to torture all over again.” He bowed his head and rested it against the largest Buddha in the place, the bra.s.s one on the coffee table in front of him. ”Don't want the angels either, if they could even get hold of me. I've been a bad guy from time to time. There's a whole lot of no-good in me. I know that. And I want to make up, I do, but my way, not theirs.”

It seemed Dream Angel out there hadn't made much of an impression on Wilbur. He hadn't made much of one on me either. I sat up, stood still until I stopped swaying, and then reached up and ripped the poster from the ceiling. Laying it on the table, I pointed to the blue river and said gently, ”Then join the river, John. You're a Buddhist.” I took his hand and placed it flat on water that almost seemed real. ”Rebirth. You flow on. They'll never find you. There are many ways in this world. There's no reason you can't do it your way.”

”My way.”

As he contemplated the water with the sweep of his thumb, I kissed his bristly cheek. ”You and I, John. We are of a kind. Until the day we die and beyond, we'll do it our way.”

Five minutes later I was being chased out of a trailer, buckshot singing over my head. Wilbur was yelling and swearing, firing again, and slamming the door shut. It was wild and crazy and I needed Solomon and the angel to buy it for just a second. I pa.s.sed the first as he was pounding with both fists at air that sparked gold under the impact but didn't give way.

Then the swearing stopped, the buckshot ceased, and there was a long moment of quiet before the sound of one single shot ripped through the night. It sounded like small caliber. Didn't matter really. It just meant it would bounce around the inside of his skull, turning to pudding everything in its path. Wilbur was a mountain man. If he wanted something shot dead, it was shot dead. The glowing circle around the trailer instantly faded, the flakes of crystal crumbling to gray ash.