“If he visits tonight, he can spend his time obsessing over his castration,” Leo said calmly, breaking open the shotgun to make sure it was loaded. Take no chances . . . that was Leo. “Do what you have to do. Be who you have to be with him. Be true to yourself.” His black eyes were darker than Lenore’s feathers. “But not tonight. No taunting, no teasing, and none of the other things I don’t care to think about. Tonight you sleep.”

“If only your father knew,” I said, my eyelids already falling fast. “See what you’ve become inside.”

“I doubt my father will ever know me again or care to.” He turned out the light on my bedside table. “He can’t forget. I was bad . . . evil.” Being around demons will show you the real meaning of the word evil, and how people so rarely see the real thing even when it’s right in front of their faces.

“Not evil.” I let my eyes shut, remembering a younger Leo.

He snorted sharply.

“Not good.” I gave in a little. “But not evil. You had a . . . wildness in you.”

“Evil,” he repeated with a sigh. “Don’t sugarcoat it. I was what I was. I’m different now. But back then, I was evil.”

And, honestly, yes, he had been more than a toe over the Dark Side. More like a California commute over. Hours from the line we all walk. Going, going, gone. But he’d come back, and while he wasn’t now, he had been then—evil. Bad as they came.

“You were.” I reached out blindly and rested a hand on his knee. “Love you anyway.”

“What about the bad old days? What about then?” Patient, undemanding—all with cold steel across his knees. A quiet and serene hunter.

I told him the truth. I had to. It was Leo. I curled my fingers into the warmth under his knee . . . seconds away from sleep.

“Even then,” I whispered.

The next morning, after Leo helped clean and cream up my back again and then left to open the bar, I noticed it. It was the smallest fleck of dark brown in a crease of my knuckle. Could’ve been dirt, but it wasn’t. It was blood. A tiny remnant of Zeke left on me. It had somehow survived two showers, that one stubborn speck. Even his blood was stubborn.

I scrubbed at it thoroughly with a washcloth until it was gone. My skin was red and abraded, but the blood was gone. I shouldn’t have let Zeke and Griffin get to me. I’d known that from day one, the day I’d let two wary teenagers into my bar, handed them cleaning supplies and enough money for breakfast until we got the deep fryers going. I’d known I shouldn’t get attached. They weren’t like puppies you planned to find good homes for. No, I’d known I’d be seeing the wary blond one and his emotionally frozen friend with the lost eyes for a long time. Seeing, yes? But not getting close to.

Not puppies. More like that sweet, sweet neighbor who lived next door. Ninety-five if she was a day. Made you cookies or told you stories or whatever sweet old people did . . . sweet old people who died the moment you got attached. Granted I hadn’t had cookie-making neighbors next to the bar, just winos, a porn shop, and a strip club. But I’d seen movies about it, getting attached, and I wasn’t going to do it. I had Leo and everything else . . . everyone else was expendable until I found out who killed Kimano. It had to be that way. Had to.

Lying to yourself, it’s an art.

That’s what I’d thought back then. It hadn’t lasted long, a week maybe—a week of feeding them and watching them twitch and duck their heads every time someone walked into the bar. Watching for cops, social services, or a vague but terrifying authority figure only an on-the-run teen could imagine, the one with the icy clamp of hand on the junction of neck and shoulder just when you might think you were safe. Griffin and Zeke had been a thousand times worse than the most vulnerable and cute damn puppy.

I’d gotten attached. And it hurt. It hurt like hell.

“Bitch alert. Bitch alert,” Lenore cawed as I came through the door at the base of my apartment stairs.

That only deepened the scowl I felt on my face. “The deep fryer works on more than just cheese, you know, bird,” I threatened.

Unimpressed, he cleaned his feathers, then flew to the window, unlocked the catch with his beak, pushed at the glass until it swung sideways, and flew out. There was a shotgun lying on the bar—Leo’s way of telling me he was going to be out for a while and I decided that was it. No more. The bar was closed today. Except for clients—I was expecting two or three. The rest of the time I could spend on the phone, trying to get information from my own contacts. Someone somewhere had to know something more about the Light.

I tried Robin again. There was no answer other than an imaginatively erotic, borderline-pornographic voice mail recording. From there I went down the list, hitting every single one I could think of who might know anything—and not have an agenda of their own. That left out Ishiah in New York. He wasn’t Eden House, but it was possible he’d swing their way more than mine. I couldn’t be sure about him. He was like a lapsed Catholic—you never knew when he might get God again. It wasn’t worth the risk. Above could kiss my ass . . . the Light was mine.

In between calls my clients came knocking. One lady wanted to know where her cheating husband had holed up with their money and his mistress. It was a quick ten thousand. “Don’t kill the mistress,” I said matter-of-factly as I counted the money. “She’s nineteen. Stupid. Doesn’t know better.”

Bitter eyes narrowed behind expensive, tinted sunglasses. “And my husband?”

I smiled coolly. “He most definitely knows better, but you don’t want to go to prison, do you, sugar?” He’d also once had a business partner who liked to fly Piper Cubs as a hobby. One day that partner went up and nobody ever found out where he came down. But her husband, he might not have known where, but he knew why. He was a cheat and a liar and, I strongly suspected, a killer. I trusted myself enough that strongly suspected was good enough for me. Give a lady a fish and she eats for the day; teach a lady to fish and she finds the yacht her cheating spouse is living it up on, puts his ass in jail, and lives on their money for a lifetime. Maybe hires a few dancing pool boys—and good for her.

“The guy next door at the porn shop has a brother who’s a private detective. Good one too. You might want to have him take a look at your husband’s work-related past, especially his deceased partner,” I offered as I stacked the bills. “And, Mrs. D?” I added as she stood. “Happiness is the trifecta of no means, no motive, and an unbreakable alibi.” I was just full of fortune cookie wisdom these past few days. “I doubt your husband has that lucky ticket.”

I dealt with two more clients, fewer fees, and a very small commission from the porn guy—not all clients need just one thing. All in all a good day. Right up until the moment Solomon appeared. He didn’t bother with the door. He solidified into the shadows behind the bar and walked forward to pull down a wineglass from the overhead rack. “White, red, or . . . pink?” He raised an eyebrow.

I was fairly certain you weren’t supposed to mix alcohol with painkillers. Maybe the serrated combat knife I pulled from my boot and tossed at his chest was a bit of an overreaction to his lack of medical knowledge, and the movement did rip at the nerve endings of my back, but I wasn’t sorry either way.

He didn’t bother to dodge, only grunted as the knife slammed into him, and then went on to pour himself a glass of red. He drank half of it before he reached down and pulled free the knife, buried blade deep in his chest. He rested it on the top of the bar, where it dripped ebon. “Maybe tea would be better. A teaspoon of honey might improve your mood.” He smiled that smoky smile. “Sweeten you up, my Trixa.”

I could’ve gotten up and walked over to the shotgun that lay beside the knife on the bar, but it was far and I was tired. I was also curious. Curious, pissed, wary, and working it. Always working it. “Siccing several demons on me is not the way to my heart, believe it or not.”