THE GRIMROSE PATH: Trickster, Book 2 Excerpt
I raised my eyebrows. “All right. I see your point. Someone has been eating their Wheaties, taking their vitamins, and chugging a whole lot of Red Bull on top of that.” Inside I had more of a holy shit, the sky is falling, don’t let the demon see you sweat attitude going on. Something that could do that…. “Maybe Upstairs has decided to do some old fashioned smiting of the wicked and wanton. And let’s face it…you are both.”
His teeth became human again as the smile became smug. “True. Wicked and wanton and I stand by my record placing in the top ten in my particular region of Hell. But, no. Not even in the War…or the Sacred Scuffle, Police Action, Hallowed Hoe-down, take your pick, we didn’t lose a third so many. Who do you think was most likely to rebel? The holiest of the holy? The Precious Moments Angels? The simpering weaklings who were no better than fluffy baby ducks with halos?” He snorted. “No. We were the warriors. God’s Righteous Fury. The Smiters, sweetheart, not the Smitees. Granted, we did pick up a mess of messenger angels, watcher angels–the minimum wage pigeons who just did what they were told to do. And at that moment Lucifer was talking the loudest and God was letting the angels make their own choice. So we ended up with some weak-minded fluffy ducks after all. Like him.” He jerked his head at the stain on the floor. “But even Daffy there, to lose over nine-hundred of him in six months? That is….” He shook his head and slid on a pair of sunglasses. “I don’t know what that is. No one seems to.”
I still kept my gun out as he slid down from the desk and headed for the door. Demons, higher level demons like Eligos, moved faster than humans did. And while I’d given myself an Olympic conditioned human body when creating it, Olympic or not, it was still human…and five pounds heavier. “It’s odd, impressive, and, all right, a little more than freaky, but why should I care? Whatever this is could kill every demon in Hell and it’s not going to get my ovaries in a twist. There’s a whole lot of I-don’t-care in this general area,” I waved my free hand around me. “You kill my kind. I kill yours. This seems like a good thing for me and mine.” I wasn’t that stupid. If someone or something out there could do what Eli said, it was bad, bad news, because who knew when your kind might be….
“Next,” Eli finished for me as he opened the door, a few blonde hairs glittering in the dark brown of his hair, and looked back over his shoulder. Posed rather. Demons did like the hot rides they’d created to be admired. “I don’t need to be an angel. I don’t need telepathy to read that thought. I only have to know how smart you are. And that’s almost as smart as you think.” He grinned. “Nice T-shirt, by the way. Can’t wait to prove it wrong.”
The door closed and I slowly holstered my gun. Almost a thousand demons in six months.
Not even on my best year ever. And while I didn’t care about the dead demons…no crying over spilt sociopaths…I did wonder what this thing might do if demons started to bore it. I headed for the door myself, making a mental list of anything and everything I knew of throughout history, mine and the world’s, that could do something like this.
It was a very short list.
ALSO IN THIS SERIES
TRICK OF THE LIGHT: Trickster, Book 1
