“When you want them to, yes. As for the rest”—I shifted my shoulders in an unknowing shrug—“I’ve no idea. Next time you see a peri, ask him.”
“A peri?” Griffin bent down and picked up a stray red-gold feather of Zeke’s that had fallen to the ground and stayed when the wings had gone.
“Yes, a peri. Zeke is a peri now. I think.” I started walking down the dusty road. “Not that I’ve run into one like him before. All other peris have Heaven’s stamp of approval on their green cards. Mythology says peris are half angel, half demon. Remember this, guys,” I said firmly, “mythology is most often wrong. Sometimes it’s close, but in the end never completely right.” I hooked my arms through theirs and pulled them close for warmth. “Some angels who lived on Earth among humans for hundreds or thousands of years, watching, doing whatever it is they did, they tended to want to stay on Earth when it was their time to go home. They’d get a taste of free will and the native life. So they’d ask permission to ‘retire’ . . . to become expatriates of Heaven, if you will. I emphasize they asked permission; they didn’t give Heaven the metaphorical finger like Zeke did.”
Zeke didn’t look sorry. He actually looked rather pleased with himself. “What’s Griffin?”
“I don’t know. What the hell, for once we’ll close our eyes and buy into a little mythology. Griffin can be a peri too—the demon half instead of the angel one. He’d be the only one I’d ever heard of.” I pulled them closer, more body heat. “Which makes you as special as you always thought you were, at least from the way you dress. If Eden House doesn’t rebuild in Vegas, you’ll lose the bit paycheck and be shopping at Wal-Mart, Mr. Metrosexual, and then what will you do?”
Griffin started to stay something indignant but let it go as I leaned against his arm. “God, trickster, demon,” he said. “Trickster trumps a demon, eh?”
“Mmmm.” I rested my head on his shoulder and yawned.
“Especially a pissed-off trickster?” he continued.
“Especially,” I agreed wearily with another heavy yawn and a desire to eat the nearest buffet in its entirety. No sharing. I’d carb loaded at breakfast for all the changing I knew I’d do, all the energy I’d need. Now I was drained, had a fifteen-mile walk ahead of me, and couldn’t decide whether I’d rather sleep for days or eat for hours. Too bad I couldn’t do both at the same time.
By the time we made it back to Rachel, population less than a hundred, I gave up on the idea of “borrowing” a car and heading back to Vegas. We stopped at the Little A’Le’Inn. With Area 51 being so close, aliens were the only tourist attraction and business that kept this tiny town going. The inn’s restaurant didn’t have the buffet I’d been wanting to devour from beginning to end. I settled for five burgers, five sides of fries, and three milkshakes. I’d have to start watching it from now on. I couldn’t just melt the fat away anymore or turn it into more hair or height. I sighed and enjoyed my final burger to every last bite.
“So, your sanctuary—you called it the Hearth?” Griffin fiddled with his tuna on toast. He didn’t seem too enthralled with it. He was more into sushi or the expensive restaurants.
“The Hearth.” I nodded, and dipped a fry in ketchup. “I was for Haven myself and Sanctuary is far too clichéd, but we had a committee and voted. You never heard so much bitching over a name. And some of the members kept trying to eat the other—” I stopped at the look in Griffin’s eyes. It wasn’t panic. It wasn’t fear. It was the resignation of “Here comes yet one more nightmare in the world.” He didn’t need that, knowing the whole of what lived in the shadows of this world. He was dealing with enough.
“All different kinds of tricksters, you know?” I changed smoothly. “We don’t always get along.” I finished my fry hastily.
“So it’s just angels, demons, and what did you call your kind? Païens?”
“Drink your juice. It’s good for you,” I ordered. “Yes, angels, demons, and the païens.” As we tricksters tended to call all the supernatural creatures that inhabited the world. But Zeke and Griffin didn’t need to peek that far under the covers into the dark. Demons were enough, especially with them coping with their new lives. Humans with wings, telepathy, and empathy . . . the Light had left them all three. Whether they would live as long as the other peris did . . . thousands and thousands of years, I didn’t know. If not . . . a gray-haired Zeke in a rocking chair with a marmalade cat in his lap, shooting at the annoying neighborhood kids with a BB gun might be amusing. I almost choked at the mental picture.
“Will you be leaving now? Will you be taking off and leaving us like you always said you would?” Zeke demanded, grabbing Griffin’s sandwich when his partner didn’t make any progress on it. He gave me a similar look, as if he wanted to grab on to me the same way and keep me there.
I always had said it to the boys, warned them, although I hadn’t known exactly what would happen to them when this was over. I’d hoped I could save them. The Light had done more than hope. The Light and my guys had saved themselves.
I was a traveler. Travel came with the job. Very few of us settled down in one spot long. I’d avenged Kimano. I doubted Hell’s lapdog, Trinity, had told the other Houses about Griffin and Zeke letting me hunt with them. I doubted he’d told any other House anything at all in those last days. I thought they’d be safe. They could stay here with a new Eden House or have my bar or come with me if they wanted. Or . . .
Or I could stick around awhile. It was only four or five years. I still had my bar, still had my business on the side; I could still even do my trickster work. I didn’t have to change form to do that. It made things much easier if I’d been able to, definitely, but I could do it.
“Who knows?” I sucked up the last of the strawberry shake. “I might stay around . . . if you stop shooting up my bar. What’s the difference between ten years and fourteen or fifteen? I can see it. Kicking demon ass with you guys for a while longer.” It was hard to take brothers for granted when you’d already lost one. I was born to travel, but I was born into a family too, and then I’d chosen one of my own. I’d gotten used to them. Stay in one place long enough and that’ll happen. Mama would be so disappointed in me, but, you know what? Mama could kiss . . . Get over it, I changed hastily in my mind. What I’d done to Solomon, Mama could do to me and call it a spanking for a dirty mouth. “Maybe I will stick around and hunt demons with you guys. It’s good exercise.”
Zeke took in the five empty plates. “You’re going to need it if you keep shoveling it down like a starved hippo.”
I didn’t stab him with my fork, but it was a close call. “I have to crash. Let’s get one of the motel rooms, because I have about five minutes before I go comatose for at least a day.”
It was a lovely hotel room. I fell face-first on the nearest bed. Actually it could’ve been the grotto at Hef’s mansion for all I knew. I didn’t know if there were pictures of flying saucers on the wall or soap shaped like an alien’s head or a shag carpet that devoured small pets. Nothing registered but sleep and the vaguely distant grumbling of Zeke and Griffin standing beside the other twin bed, all that was available.
“I’m tired of being the big spoon.”
“You’re taller than I am. It just works that way.”
It went on from there I was sure, but I was long gone, so buried under a blanket of sleep that an entire horde of demons couldn’t have woken me up. But what felt like a week later later, the squabbling that put demonic cursing into perspective did.
“You could’ve slept in the bathtub.”
“You could have too, partner. Might have earned you some more halo points. You can’t throw omelets at the cook. Hot melted cheese is like napalm. The guy will probably need skin grafts.” Griffin’s hand was on my shoulder shaking lightly.