I moved forward and sat on the foot of the bed. I was grateful he was wearing clothes, because I could all too easily feel the lack of mine. “Could you find a demon for me? A particular demon?”
“You? Asking me for a favor? I’m staggered.” The amused look faded to calculation. “I’m quite sure. I assume you know there would be a price for that. What are you offering?”
Now I was the one to smile. “I think you know that, Solomon. You’re not a stupid man . . . or demon.”
“Your soul or the Light.” He held out both hands, raising and lowering each like scales. “I know which I’d prefer, but unfortunately I answer to a higher . . . rather lower power. The Light it is.” He leaned forward toward me, one of those big hands resting above my knee, the fire of it burning through the thick cloth of the towel as if it weren’t there. “Tell me where it is and I’ll deliver up any demon you wish. A hundred if you have that much ammunition.”
“And you don’t even want to know why?” I asked as the hand slowly kneaded my leg until I felt that fire intensify and seep through every inch of flesh under his broad palm and caressing fingers.
“I don’t care. I care only about the Light.” He was right there—his breath mine. His mouth mine. And it wasn’t that of a monster . . . a demon. The breath was that of a man touched with the faintest smoky taste of whiskey. The lips were slowly lazy as the drip of honey and artful. Extremely, amazingly, unbelievably artful. This time not a man’s—unless that man had lived thousands of years with the sole purpose of learning to please a woman with a single kiss. It could make you forget where you were, who he was, who you were. If he could do all that with one kiss, I could see why some women might find souls overrated.
Some women.
When he pulled back, his eyes were gleaming with success . . . gleaming almost as brightly, in fact, as the blade I held against his throat. Then only my blade was gleaming. Solomon’s amusement, his seduction, it all disappeared behind a veil of tarnished gray. Anger. “Where is the Light?” he demanded darkly.
“I don’t know. I only know where the next stepping-stone is. Follow me, Solomon, while I follow the path. It’ll be just like The Wizard of Oz. We’ll follow the yellow brick road. I’ll be Dorothy.” I pressed the blade harder. “And you’ll be Toto after a visit to the vet’s office—snip snip . . . so don’t push me.”
“Trust me, Trixa. I’ll follow you,” he promised, reluctant respect surfacing behind the anger—that of a warrior for another warrior. “There’s no place on Earth you can go that I can’t find you.” Despite the metal at his throat, he kissed me again. It was the barest touch of skin against skin.
Then he was gone.
It was just me and my trusty letter opener that I’d borrowed from the desk in the corner and hidden under the mattress. Good enough for paper, but too dull by far for slicing a throat. What Solomon didn’t know wouldn’t get me eaten—at least eaten in the bad way. I fell back on the bed and felt the tingle that prickled with a quicksilver burn up and down every nerve ending.
Why was it always the bad boys?
Chapter 8
“This is it?”
Griffin looked skeptical. Trinity didn’t bother. He just kept that black gaze on me, patient as a spider. The five other men were hidden behind sunglasses and I didn’t waste a look to see what their reaction was. I didn’t care. They were extras in this little play.
“This is it,” I said, “this” being the aquarium at Man dalay Bay Casino. I didn’t like aquariums any more than I liked zoos, but the Light was calling me here. As for who the next person was who had a bread crumb deposited in their brain, I’d discovered the Light had a sense of humor. “This way.”
I waited while one of Eden House’s version of MIBs, Men in Bulgaria sunglasses, paid for our admission. I wasn’t paying for my own kidnapping. Mr. Trinity wouldn’t dirty his godly hands with filthy sinful money—never mind he was rolling in it, and Griffin was distracted. He didn’t like being away from his partner’s side and it showed. He didn’t trust Trinity completely anymore if he trusted him at all, but that didn’t show, not to anyone but me. If the other five were empaths or psychics, it wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t show to them either. Griffin was better than they were. He and Zeke were the prizes of this particular House. They had no equals there.
Leo was back at the bar feeding scrawny girls and their pudgy dogs. She gave most of her food to her dog. She deserved the help, just as Zeke and Griffin had years ago. “She left with a garbage bag full of food,” he’d said placidly when I’d called him on the phone before we left Eden House for the aquarium. “If she does come back to help clean, we may have to roll her through the mouth of the alley.”
“You never know,” I’d said sweetly. “Angels disguise themselves to test the generosity of us sinful mortals. You may have earned a spot in Heaven.” With a snort and no comment, he had hung up on me.
“Miss Leo?” Griffin said in a low tone at my ear, picking up on the emotion that I hadn’t bothered to try to conceal. Griffin was missing his own partner as well, I knew.
“Maybe some. He’s certainly going to be sorry he missed this.” I sighed.
The eight of us moved through a mass of tourists—some pudgy, some thin, and all seemingly dressed from a 1992 JC Penney catalogue. They’d obviously broken out their best for Vegas. Plastic clothes for a plastic town. We went through the underwater ship and then through the tunnel where fish and sharks swam over our heads. One swam especially close, bumped his bullet nose against the glass above us, and rolled—the traditional shark move for taking his prey down. “I think we made a friend.” I waved at it and mentally cursed the Light for at least the fifth time.
After we exited the tunnel, I stood for a second, my head cocked to one side . . . listening, but not really. More like feeling a tickle in my brain leading me along. “This way.”
“This way” turned out to be a door marked NO ENTRY. Griffin kicked it in, using as little force as he could so the splintering of the jamb wouldn’t be spotted from the outside hall. Inside the room was a walkway over the shark tank. Netting rose from the rail to well above six feet. Didn’t want the employees accidentally tumbling in and ruining ticket sales with their blood and snack-able entrails.
“All right.” I leaned against the netting to watch the sea life, and then sucked in my breath, stripped off my shirt and jeans down to panties and bra, and said, “Someone give me a knife or cut me a door.”
Griffin’s mouth fell open. For such a bright, intelligent, and serious guy, it wasn’t such a good look for him. “You. . . . down there? I thought it’d be one of the trainers or guides. You mean the Light planted a clue in some sea bass’s tiny little brain?” He moved forward, stepping on my clothes without awareness. “And, please God, tell me it’s a sea bass.”
“Did I ever tell you my brother liked sharks? And not so much planted a clue as left a trail.” One of the MIB was slicing an opening through the mesh and Mr. Trinity didn’t seem concerned in the slightest if I lost a body part or two. Big surprise. “He thought they were the beauties of the ocean. Not dolphins or orcas, he just had a thing about sharks. He even swam with them.”
“Your brother swam with sharks.” Griffin followed my gaze downward. “He wasn’t any smarter than you, then, was he?”
I smiled, kissed his cheek, and was through the netting and diving into the water below before he could grab my arm. Not that he didn’t try. A very good friend, Griffin.
The water was cooler than I expected. Not cold, but not warm either, but the salt in it burned my raw back like battery acid. I ignored it as best I could and began swimming down. I didn’t have to go too far. With eyes wide open I saw electric blue and yellow fish come to nibble at my knees and toes curiously. I saw the wavering faces of tourists who were getting a far better show than they paid for and then I saw it, the same seven-foot-long shark that had bumped and grinned at me—you haven’t seen a true grin until you’ve seen a shark grin.