Give them credit? I was one of them now as much as I dragged my feet admitting it, trying to deny it with that minuscule one percent that wasn’t human. The second I forgot that I was now exactly what I appeared to be would be the second a demon would do to me what I’d done to so many of them.
Either way, human, trickster or both, I saluted Homo sapiens, respected them more than I ever had, but the gym shower? Even I had to draw the line somewhere. I kicked ass either with claws, paws, or one helluva fashionable boot, but you couldn’t convince me that mold didn’t have its own gods and demons, its own tricksters and unspeakable monsters. I know one clump bristled at me the first and last time I’d checked out the utilities. I recognized evil when I saw it. I saw it that day on seventies-era avocado green tile and some evil you simply had to walk away from. My bathroom was minutes away. I’d wait. And I’d gotten ridiculously fond of soap that smelled of oranges and felt like silk against my skin. I’d been human so many times throughout my life, but this one . . . this one . . . It had really taken. I wasn’t scared of much, but that came close to doing it.
Four more years. Who would I be then?
Me. I’d still be me. Tricking and laughing my way through life as always. Nothing was going to change that. I’d said that the past ten years. I could keep telling myself the same thing as long as I had to.
When I made it home, the closed sign was still on the door. I grumbled as I unlocked the door. Maybe Leo in his god days could make gold coins fly out his ass, but I knew the value of a hard-earned or stolen buck. It was two in the afternoon now and he hadn’t opened the place when I’d left? What was he thinking? I was surprised we didn’t have a few of our regulars going into DTs right there on the sidewalk.
Opening the door loudly, I made sure to close it more so behind me. There’s no point in being pissed off if there’s no way to share it. But before I had the chance, besides the door slamming, someone said, “You look like you were kicked out of a wet T-shirt contest.” There was a pause. “I didn’t know you could get kicked out of those.”
Zeke. Straightforward tell-me-the-truth-and-I’ll-tell-you-no-lies Zeke. Because lying was too much of a bother for him and if you lied to him, well, he’d probably just shoot you. He was sitting at one of the tables eating a pizza. Double cheese, pepperoni, sausage, mushroom, peppers, olives, and a cardiologist on call. Eating it in front of me. And there were bags . . . bags and bags in front of the table, full of garlic bread and cheese sticks from the smell of it. The exquisite smell that put the plumeria-soaked breezes of Hawaii to shame. That was worse than the wet T-shirt remark. I narrowed my eyes at him and dripped on the floor as he chewed and swallowed a bite. “You’re . . . puddle-y.” He looked at his Eden House partner across the table from him. “Is puddle-y a word?”
Griffin quirked his lips. “I think fewer moisture-related comments and more eating might be a good idea.”
Red eyebrows pulled into a scowl. “You are not the boss of me.” Slightly lighter red hair was pulled into a short ponytail . . . dry, not cascading buckets like mine. Zeke’s shirt was a plain gray long-sleeve T-shirt and his jeans were faded. What he wore didn’t make much difference to him. As long as he had a jacket to cover his gun, he was good to go. Fashion didn’t appear on his top-ten list of priorities.
“In fact, I am the boss of you,” Griffin said, reaching for his own piece of the pie, only with more napkins. “And you’re the boss of me tomorrow. Remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” Zeke gave a grin. He didn’t smile often, so he didn’t have much of a repertoire to choose from. Pissed and predatory. You-are-dead predatory. You-are-beyond-dead predatory. And this was the newest version that had cropped up since last November. Behind-the-bedroom-door predatory. It was also happy and since Zeke had spent most of his mortal life barely comprehending the word, I forgave the pizza. It was good to see him this way. More free and open than he’d ever been when he’d thought he was human. When he thought he and Griffin were human.
I know. Vegas, right? Is anyone human?