Griffin looked amused as well until I threw him under the bus without a second thought when I asked Zeke with all innocence, “Aren’t you pissed at Griffin right now?”
“Oh yeah.” Zeke by now had supplanted me in my position on the edge of the bed, and had been automatically wetting and wringing a washcloth in the basin to pass back and forth to his partner. Griffin was working on getting all the dried blood out of the creases of his hands and the raw patches of scraped skin over his knuckles. It reminded me how fortunate we were he was still around. Taking on demons without backup wasn’t conducive to that. Zeke was as aware of that as I was. He had been momentarily distracted, but he was back on the scent now. “You are never getting out of the house again. Ever. Ever. If I can find a goddamn hamster ball big enough to put you in, I will. You’re an idiot. A selfish, clueless idiot. Eden House thought you could guide me? Thought you were smart enough to partner up with me? Hell, the demons probably didn’t even set a trap. I’ll bet you tripped and fell into one’s open fucking jaws. Maybe it wasn’t even demons. Maybe a pack of poodles mauled you.”
Tickling the bottom of his foot through the sheet, I said to Griffin’s betrayed expression, “He’s speaking to you again. That’s something, isn’t it? You can thank me later.”
That didn’t happen.
I wasn’t surprised. Those thrown under buses aren’t often grateful, but with those who jump under them of their own accord, that’s not always true. But I didn’t find that out until later—when Rosanna showed up.
We took Griffin and Zeke back to the bar with us. AMA—against medical advice—but since medical advice hadn’t cured him, and Zeke had, it hadn’t been much of a deterrent. While Griffin had finished cleaning up, he’d also told us about his solo demon hunts, every detail. He’d found new hunting grounds we hadn’t known about—some bars, some hotels . . . and one in particular that hosted pageants for people who wanted to dress up their four-year-old like a ten-dollar hooker. The poor kids couldn’t sell their souls to get a normal childhood, but their mom could sell hers to ensure her little Savannah won that crown. I hadn’t thought of that one. Griffin had been clever, too clever, but now we’d know where to look for him if he did something this suicidal again. There had been five of them, the demon safaris . . . The sixth had been the trap. Five solo demon killings—he’d had every reason to look exhausted in the past week or so as it was catching up with him. He didn’t have every reason to be alive, however. He was good, but fate is capricious. If he’d been trolling alone and come across Armand before Armand had been turned into a demon-flavored milk shake on my floor or had run into another higher-level demon like Armand, there was every chance Griffin wouldn’t have been around long enough for the demons to bother with a trap. That Eli had saved Griffin might not classify as a miracle in the holy sense, but it was wholly unexpected and I didn’t want to depend on it again. As for assuming most of the demons would wise up and stay in Hell and out of Cronus’s reach . . . First, they couldn’t stay there forever. Eventually they’d run out of souls to eat. Second, lower-level demons weren’t that intelligent. They didn’t know when they were profoundly outclassed or they didn’t have the brain cells to believe it. They wouldn’t hide long.
All of that made it an easy decision. Until Griffin was back in top fighting form, he and Zeke could stay with me. It wouldn’t be the first time the bar was a makeshift recovery room for them. After the last time, I’d learned my lesson and added a spare bedroom downstairs. Granted, you could only fit a single-sized bed in there and had to crawl up that bed from the foot as there was no room to walk beside it, but it was, as I told Griff and Zeke, all theirs—a home away from home.
“You told the doctor you had the best accommodations possible for me. Luxurious, you said. And when he still wouldn’t sign the discharge papers, you all but smuggled me out of the hospital, and for this?” Griffin asked, looking much more healthy, bright eyed and bushy tailed, than he had a right to, aside from the bruise on his face. Yes, they’d definitely given him the good pain pills.
“Considering you were hanging in a foyer like a side of beef in a butcher’s freezer yesterday, I think this is a step up, so don’t complain. It’s the only guest room I have and I fixed it up months ago especially for you two. Be grateful,” I ordered.
“Didn’t this used to be the storage closet?” Zeke stuck his head in and looked around. “Didn’t you keep the toilet paper and cleaning supplies for the customer bathrooms in here? And the vomit bucket and mop?”
Picky. Picky. Picky.