“No.” I turned out all the lights but one. “So no going after them alone.”
“The demon was right. You are bossy.” Zeke transferred the disgruntled look from his weapon to me.
“I’ve babysat your scrawny asses for ten years. I’ve a right to be bossy,” I retorted, shooing them toward the back office and the couch. “Now, go cuddle.”
“Four years,” Griffin muttered as he moved into the back and out of sight, but I heard the last words. “You’re only four years older, Trixa. It hardly merits a salute.”
“Cuddle?” Zeke looked after him, then back at me, a mildly panicked expression replacing the aggravation. “We have to cuddle? I’m pretty sure I don’t want to cuddle.”
I patted his cheek as I passed him on the stairs. “You never know until you try.” I made sure I locked my bedroom door behind me in case a pissed-off and forcibly cuddled Griffin stormed up. It didn’t happen. It made me wonder who slept on the floor or who was the big spoon and who was the little spoon. When I woke up the next morning, it was to see Zeke standing at my bureau holding my picture of Kimano.
“When did you get so good at picking locks?” I would’ve woken up had any stranger tried to enter the room. But I could sense Griffin and Zeke. The psychic and empath thing. The raising them for a few years thing. A hundred other things. Take your pick, but I knew when they were around, the same as I knew when Leo was around, and the building still felt empty. He hadn’t come back yet.
“Since you taught me.” He continued to study the picture.
“You talk like I’m not always on the side of the good and noble law. Like I’m an actual criminal. Shame on you. I fed you fried cheese to your heart’s content when you were a boy.” I pushed my hair back and climbed out of bed. Still in silk, but a knee-length nighty this time. I did love silk beyond all things. I walked over and took the picture frame and folded it against my chest. I had a world of deceits in me, too many to count. My wandering and slightly unlawful ways called for them, but that protective movement I couldn’t have stopped if I’d tried.
“You don’t look alike,” he commented.
It was perceptive of him. The hair, except for my streaks and his being straight to my curly, and the skin color, were both on the money from what you could tell from a black-and-white picture, but, no, we shared none of the same features. “Our family’s that way. No peas in a pod among us.”
He then picked up one of my knives that had been lying close to the picture, opened a drawer, and began to polish it with a pair of my underwear. And from the tilt of his head he knew exactly what he was doing and the degree to which he was annoying me. “Leo told us a long time ago a demon killed your brother. He told us you didn’t like to talk about it.”
“Leo should’ve kept his mouth shut and what exactly do you think you’re doing now?” I said grimly as I snatched the panties away from him with my other hand. Revenge for the cuddle remark, had to be. He normally wasn’t suicidal. Homicidal, yes, but not suicidal. At least not since he was fifteen, the scar on his neck reminded me.
“Talking about it.” He flipped the blade and caught it. “Griffin says you’re too stubborn to realize how dangerous those two demons are. He says you’re so focused on revenge—on your mission—that you’re blind. He says you’re acting like me.” He looked down. “Nice legs.” He bent over slightly to get a better look.
I kicked him hard in the shin with the heel of my bare foot. It probably stung me more than him, but it was worth it. I grabbed the knife he was still tossing as it was midair in another flip. Holding it by the point, I tossed it at my headboard, nailing a cheetah in the eye. The panties swung cheerfully from the blade. I’d keep it there as a reminder. These things were temporary. Once the killer was dead, I was gone, and if it felt like I was leaving two other brothers behind . . . I’d get over it. Because for all his irritating ways, let me count the thousands, I did love Zeke. And I loved Griffin. It was something I never counted on. Leo would leave too. He was staying only because of me and my mission, as Zeke called it. What would happen to them then? They were men, all grown-up, but there was Eden House and then there was the truth. . . .
I sighed and pulled him down by his shirt until I could rest my forehead against his. “Who better to tell me if I get too Zeke-like, then, right? But trust me, I know what I’m doing.”
“You are too Zeke-like,” he countered immediately, resting a tentative hand on my back. “But I trust you.”
“Honestly?” I smiled. Absolute, full trust from Zeke . . . that was huge.
“Right behind Griffin.” He paused a beat before adding, “He tells me I should.”
I groaned and reached around to swat his butt. “Ass,” I repeated fondly before turning him and pushing him toward the door. “I’m going out to shop for the bar. Plus, I have no desire to see your boss today. If he shows up asking where we go next, tell him I still don’t know. I still haven’t sorted it out yet. That guy was so high I’m having trouble telling where his hallucinations begin and the Light ends. As for the two missing guys out front . . .” I shook my head. “Tell them the truth, but just say it was Solomon. They already know about him and how he likes to hang around here and harass me.”
“Demonic dick,” he grunted. “But he’s good. Too good. You really are being too much like me. Can’t you stop it?”
I didn’t answer, only shoved him out the door and closed it behind him. But the truth was I couldn’t stop it, any more than he could have. Griffin’s training, it wouldn’t work on me, and Leo knew better than to try talking me out of it. I had my mission.
Because I didn’t have my brother.
Chapter 11
Las Vegas Springs Preserve was my favorite park in the city and a good place to think. Close to Meadows Mall, it lacked the stark beauty of Red Rock Canyon outside Vegas or the wild burros that roamed free. On the upside it had cottonwood trees and winding paths, and your chances of seeing a tarantula were a little less. Not that I had anything against spiders. They were just out to make a living too and make the occasional connection with another creature . . . whether it was to screw it or suck it dry. It wasn’t the pretti est way of putting it, but the most honest. We all had to eat. I suppose we all didn’t have to have sex. Nuns managed, after all, but they had more self-control than spiders and probably more than I did too. Although it had been quite a while since I’d dated anyone casually or seriously, even if Solomon was doing his best to make that choice difficult.
But I had too much to do for casual dating . . . with a nice, normal nondemon . . . even if most of what I’d been doing was waiting. Once I’d found out about the Light, it was just a matter of waiting for it to show up. I’d searched for years, but the Light had turned out to be good at hiding—which only made it more mysterious. I knew what it did, but where it came from originally, I’d never been able to find out. Was it a living creature or more some sort of sentient artifact? I didn’t know. Even with part of it living in my head, I still didn’t know. Alien maybe? Technology from before the dawn of time? A night-light from Atlantis?
I sat on a bench in the garden by the Desert Living Center and gave an inner snort at that. As if demons and angels weren’t enough, let’s go straight to the tabloid trash route. I also didn’t know why the Light had chosen now to pop up, or if it really had been just a fluke that a caver had tripped across it. It didn’t matter which though, because it was helping me find the other thing I hadn’t been able to locate on my own no matter how long I’d looked: Kimano’s killer. I knew the Light would help me do what I couldn’t manage alone, and I’d been willing to wait as long as it took.