At Trixsta’s door—Leo had the glass fixed . . . nice of him—I stopped. “You didn’t ask what Cronus wanted. What he really wanted.”
“After what you did by conning Eligos, truthfully, I’m afraid to ask. You put yourself in Hell’s crosshairs. Made yourself the target of every demon alive. I don’t think you could survive that, trickster or not. That makes me think you took a huge risk because you know what Cronus wants and it’s something you aren’t going to walk away from . . . that chances are good that no one is walking away from. Plus, if you were going to tell me, you would have by now, and I know how impossible it is to pin down an uncooperative trickster. Heaven won’t like it, but I know better than to think I can do anything to change that. You’ll tell me when you want to and no sooner.”
He was right . . . about it all. I took his arm and turned him from the door after calling for Leo. “Leo will take you to the airport, Ish. Go back home to New York and sex up Goodfellow five ways to Sunday. Hold on to what you have now. There’s no guarantee the world will keep turning. That’s true of any day, but with Cronus here, it’s even more true . . . so go home. Give Robin my best.” As Leo stepped outside, I asked him if he would take Ish to the airport and he did his pissed-but-I-am-stoic-and-rise-above-it expression. I smiled, squeezed his arm, and urged the both of them toward the alley and Leo’s car. I’d called the restaurant this morning too. My car was long gone—to the tow yard or Mexico. “But whatever you do,” I called to Ishiah, “stay out of his pantry.”
Puzzlement and annoyed jealousy crossed the peri’s face before he shook his head in resignation. “Tricksters.” He asked one last time, “Are you positive you don’t want to tell me? Who knows? It might save your life.” Against Cronus? I wished Heaven had that kind of power. I wished anyone did. I shook my head and made a shooing gesture as if he were a particularly stubborn rooster and I was all out of corn. “Damn tricksters,” he embellished.
He was disappearing into the alley when I challenged after him. “So close to blasphemy. So close.”
The only thing he left behind was his growl to call him when I needed the help—not if, but when. It was irritating that he knew that I would. I almost hoped Goodfellow didn’t give him any.
A puck not give it up? That would never happen.
After they left in Leo’s car and I waved to them, I went into the bar, five . . . ten steps. Eligos came up through the floor as if it was nothing more than a hallucinatory mist instead of hardwood—the shattered hole about the size of a well’s mouth. His claws tangled in my shirt, and we kept going up. When we hit the ceiling, it was the same as the floor . . . to Eli. I was in a human body, however, not demon, and it hurt, even with Eli ahead of me—by a nose, like they said at the racetrack, by a nose.
By nearly a foot, a head, in his case. He was in full demon form—copper scales, thrashing wings, a narrow dragon’s jaw, broken glass teeth, a fury-filled black gaze with swirling specks as brilliant as coins weighing down a dead man’s eyes. I caught flashes of all that as wood splinters, paint chips, and plaster chunks and dust fell around us as we ended up in my bedroom. If Eli hadn’t been leading the way clearing a path, I would’ve broken my neck on the ceiling or crushed my skull or, hell, both.
We hovered in the air in my bedroom as I all but swallowed my tongue to keep from coughing at the dust or make a sound at the tearing pain in my shoulders that had scraped through Eli’s new “door.” A fully functioning shape-shifting trickster wouldn’t, so I couldn’t. “Lying bitch.” It was calmly said, but the movement that went with it was anything but restrained. I flew through the air and landed on the bed... almost. I never appreciated the difference “almost” could make until I hit the floor on my back. I’d fallen there like an autumn leaf . . . if an autumn leaf weighed a buck thirty.
Buck thirty-five.
Buck . . . no one’s goddamn business.
I had red and gold scarves on the ceiling, hanging like billowing sails or the canopy of the bed of a princess. I didn’t feel much like a princess right then, but I did feel as if I were sailing. On a smooth glassy surface . . . not a ripple—only me and the red-gold of a setting sun as I drifted silently. Then the falling sun was gone and the Fallen took its place—fallen leaves, fallen suns, fallen God’s own.
Everything fell, sooner or later.