“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 shimmered 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 sassy and unrepentant smile as he hauled his holy ass 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, Hell, 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 bastard 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 bastard. Couldn’t understand a damn 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 damn 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, shiny 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 passed the voice on and whoever has it will pass 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 brass 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.”