The Grimrose Path (Trickster, #2)(76)
I waved a hand at the still-snoring, now-sandy god. “You bring this to the table and you have problems with whom I send into Greek Hell? I know you must be joking.”
“No, I have confidence in whomever you sent. You’re on a job. You’re a professional. It’s the love and goodwill issue that I was doubting,” he said, as dry as the sand beneath our feet. “You can’t blame me, with Cronus and Eligos showing up routinely. I know neither has love of any sort for you.”
“Neither does the Angel of Death. It’s an epidemic lack of taste around here.” To the left of us, a car started as I saw a man and a woman running away from us and down the block, which would be the type of reaction that Zeke tended to engender. Love and goodwill? He had Griffin, he has his guns—what in the world could he possibly need with goodwill? It wasn’t necessarily the worst attitude to have, not in his particular business or his life, for that matter. It made things much more simple and expedient, as in blowing up your neighbor’s house for being drug dealers and then “borrowing” the car they were subsequently living in.
“Okay. We have a car.” Zeke popped his head up through the moon roof. “I told them I’d bring it back. I said it’d be fine, more or less, and that neighbors share. They didn’t have a problem with it.” None at all, although they were pelting down the sidewalk as fast as they could run, which was fairly quick as meth-heads often weren’t in the best of physical shape. Love, goodwill, and enough speed to put you in the hundred-yard dash; it all came via the Zeke welcome wagon. “How many guns do we need? Or grenades?” He grinned happily. “I still have some grenades I swiped from Eden House.”
It took twenty minutes to clear the car out enough to fit us all in, and I didn’t want to know what was causing that bizarrely biologically slippery sensation under my boots, but we made it. Leo was driving, I was in the passenger seat, and an unconscious Thor was sandwiched between Griffin and Zeke in the back. It wasn’t the most pleasant experience for the two of them as Thor, room deodorizer aside, wasn’t growing any less pungent as time passed. They would simply have to survive as best they could. Suck it up. Cronus had caught the scent of Griffin’s wings back at the bar, and that meant that leaving him or Zeke behind wasn’t safe or particularly prudent. I was rarely accused of being prudent, but taking care of my boys brought out the cautious side in me . . . if one didn’t count the seven guns and four grenades in the trunk of the car. Although, considering our situation, that was cautious. Being prepared equaled firepower, since the only god in the car still with functioning god-like powers was in an alcoholic stupor.
“I miss shape-shifting like crazy, but right now, I miss your big badass self more,” I said to Leo.
“I still couldn’t do anything about Cronus, nothing entirely effective at any rate,” he said as he backed the car out.
“No, but you could take Eligos and Azrael and twist them into a nice pretzel. All we would need is the mustard.” I leaned back in the seat, the newspaper doubling as a liner rustling under and behind me. I didn’t want to know what was under my boots and I absolutely didn’t want to know what was under the paper. I had faith that the universe, infinite in its wisdom, had put it there for a reason and I left it at that.
“Heaven couldn’t leave it alone with Ishiah, eh? They had to play good cop, bad cop. Or rather, retired cop, homicidal cop.” Leo put the sun visor down and fished for sunglasses in his pocket. I thought again how lucky he was that the Light had let him keep complete shape-shifting ability in bird form, clothes included, or he would’ve been falling through the air naked over the Grand Canyon. That was a mental picture. I tucked it away for further contemplation. “If you want to let Ishiah know what you expect of Heaven, now might be a good time. You might want to reach out and touch Hell too.”
“You have it figured out, do you? You’re so clever.” I normally hated it when someone saw through my plan before I revealed it in stunning, occasionally body-partsplattered wonder. Leo was my kind though, and it was difficult to out-trick a trickster of his caliber. It might be by choice instead of birthright, but he excelled at the art. I hadn’t made a genuinely serious attempt to hide anything from him in a long time. I hadn’t kept the Roses from him for a moment. If we were all going to die or worse at the hand of Cronus, I wanted Leo to have something to amuse him on the way out. And if Eli’s reaction of trying to strangle me had left him less than entertained, I had to admit that was my fault. I pulled out my cell phone and started dialing.
“The big plan.” Griffin leaned up. “I’m still waiting to hear about this Titan-conquering big plan, particularly as you say Titans are invincible. Fill me in.”
Both Leo and I spared him quick and intentionally frustrating silent grins before returning to the tasks of driving and me telling Ishiah what I wanted of Heaven. It was enough that Griffin did get a taste of the plan or a small part of it. From the “Oh shit” that floated forward, he found it not particularly reassuring. I didn’t blame him. My plans, cons, little tricks, they were all things diverting, but reassuring didn’t often fall into that category—not the way anyone but a trickster would define it.
As for Hell, I left Eligos a voice mail. It was only a matter of time, but there weren’t any towers that far yet, and Eli wasn’t going to be risking his wings or life up here for any longer than it took to attempt to kill me. There was the chance that Lucifer had lost patience with him. The Roses were more than enough reason for that, but Eli as Eli and Eli as Eligos had a way about him and a mouth that never stopped spinning things to put him on top. If any demon could talk his way out of Lucifer’s bad side, not a playground I would want to be in, it was Eli. Hopefully they’d both be in a cooperative mood. And like every fifth grader knew, “One if by land, and two if by sea, and I on the opposite shore will be”. . .