Ghosts—0, Lions—1.
There was no Marcus, no ghost grandpa; that was a given. I hated to lie to Nik, but I would hate it much more if he found out that a child molester thought I might be a witness, wrongly assumed I was an easy target, and thought I was better off dead, whichever of those was true. My brother didn’t need to know any of that. I didn’t want him knowing either that I saw a monster that needed to be put down. So I had. There was no difference between Mr. Invisible and a Grendel. If he’d been any other kind of criminal, a thief, a druggie, it would’ve been different, but he was a molester and a murderer. People can pay their dues, people can change…sometimes. Monsters can’t change and their dues are paid in their blood. Hopefully I’d stick with my own monsters, my Grendels with their scarlet eyes and metal smiles, and wouldn’t run into one of the invisible man’s kind again. I wouldn’t want to make a hobby of this.
Was I lying to myself?
I didn’t know.
Niko…he wouldn’t want me to make a hobby of this. That was enough for me. He was a good brother, a good person, and while I wasn’t, didn’t know how to be, wasn’t wired right, I tried to let him be my conscience most of the time.
As for all of the time…hell. No promises other than I would try. Trying was the best I could do.
I hadn’t tried too much with this monster-wannabe. I admitted it. I’d give it a better shot in the future.
I rubbed a toe of my sneaker through the pile of pristine white salt. It was all that was left of an extremely bad man and an inexcusably inefficient monster in the end, heaped on the cheap brown-and-orange tile. I’d have to sweep that up before Niko got home and started asking questions I didn’t want to answer. I’d thought about it the past few nights and come to the conclusion Niko had forgotten our ex-serial killer, ex-neighbor, ex-Junior, as he couldn’t bear remembering what he’d done to the blood-soaked excuse of a man.
While me?
I was seconds away from forgetting the park. Seconds away from forgetting Mr. Invisible. Don’t get me wrong. I was a lion and lions don’t guilt over the four-hoofed fleeing dinner they took down. Remembering the park, remembering the living room and what I’d done to Melanie’s “boogety-man” twice now, I could bear that with no problem.
It just wasn’t worth my time.
Glancing at the clock on the wall, I saw I had three more hours before Niko would be home. I’d have to clean up my mess, but there was plenty of time enough to clean it up later. Right now, I was starving. A good day called for a good meal to top it off. I walked through the salt, leaving a sneaker print in it with no regret or shred of attention as I headed toward the kitchen. Rooting around in the refrigerator, I found three-day-old Chinese from the restaurant where Nik worked. I grabbed a fork and plopped onto a chair. Mr. Invisible already rounding half forgotten and pulling into the home stretch, I dug into the cardboard container with enthusiasm. It was heavily stained with soy sauce, but I didn’t mind. It tasted fine all the same.
If a little heavy on the salt.
From Rob:
Actually, let's be honest, this is less of a story and more of a day in the life of...nope. It's not even a day. It’s about twenty minutes in the life of Griffin and Zeke (the ex-demon and ex-angel) demon destroying partners from the Trickster Novels: Trick of the Light and The Grimrose Path). View it as a snapshot of their average morning. It's harmless fluff—pure and simple. Correction: with Zeke, is anything truly harmless?
Talking Trash
Griffin likes to keep things clean.
His clothes, the house, the car, his hair, anything in his general area. Neat, Trixa calls him; overly fastidious, Leo says…and, yeah, I know what fastidious means. Like I don’t? Like I have to have someone read the back of the cereal box for me? Ass. I know what breaking the fourth wall is, too. How ’bout that?
I got distracted, didn’t I? I do that. Never about the important things. On those I focus a little too much…or that’s what everyone tells me. I think they don’t focus enough, but forget it. That’s not the issue. I was talking about Griffin. He isn’t neat. He isn’t fastidious—seriously, don’t go there again, I mean it—nope, I know exactly what he is.
Psychotic.