Take your picture of the desert yeti and move on to something more touristy and a little less nauseating.

He spit on the ground. “That’s me. Whatcha want, little girl?”

I get called that a lot. I was five-five, flat-footed, but I was rarely flat-footed. I liked heels, the higher, the better, and it wasn’t because of my height. What you can do with a knife you can do just as easily with the three-inch heel of a boot—it only takes more pressure.

You don’t need height. Guns, boots, and attitude, that’s all you really need.

He started toward me before I could respond to his “little girl” remark, and I held up a hand, then patted the warm metal beside me. “Whoa, Sasquatch. This is my car. It’s a very nice car, and I love it. Don’t you have some sort of fifty-foot restriction against approaching possible victims?”

The teeth he bared in a snarl weren’t in the expected Sasquatch-Big Foot range. They were quite nice. Sparkly, pearly white, and so incredibly perfect, they had to be dentures. I had a feeling jail was only one of the punishments Hun had gotten for his crime. In a parking lot somewhere, cavity-ridden teeth had probably once littered the asphalt. Someone had loved their truck as much as I loved my car and had used either a crowbar or a tire iron to prove it.

I started to comment on his bright, orthodontically perfect nonsmile, but remembered I did want some information from this man, and insulting his postcoital dental repair probably wasn’t the way to go. “Just kidding. Just kidding.” I smiled brightly myself and patted the hood beside me again. “Have a seat.” Grumbling, he sat and the car groaned under his weight. My nose stung under the smell, but I kept talking. “I’ve come all the way from Vegas to chat with you and I brought some friends.” I pulled a small wad of cash out of my pocket, spread the bills out, and waved them like a fan. I gave him geisha-girl eyes over the top edges. Men, even those with excessive monkey genes, never fail to fall for that . . . well, that and the four-inch chrome barrel I shoved in his ribs.

The stick and the carrot.

It was a pretty sad commentary that human society never much got past that stage.

“A friend of mine says you know something about the Light of Life.” Griffin had mentioned in passing two years ago that Eden House was looking for it, had been looking for it, although he didn’t know for how long—but it was important. It was important all right. What they didn’t tell him was that it was the most important thing that existed in the world. I was surprised he was able to hear what little he had. He had no idea what it truly was or what it could do. It was hard to say who did know in the House—either Trinity and Goodman or only Trinity. High-level info for high-level jerks.

Neither knew what the Light looked like though. At least I doubted it. I wasn’t all that sure myself. It was enough that I knew what it did or what it was supposed to do. If it was everything I’d heard it to be . . . let’s just say Trixa knew the value of a thing. Anything. Everything. Griffin and Zeke might be in the dark on this one, but not me.

The Light of Life . . . an impenetrable shield that could protect Heaven or Hell from any attack, any second war. Who could put a price on the ultimate defensive weapon? Who could put a price on invulnerability? On absolutely guaranteed survival?

I could.

Contacts, context, and a knowledge of history—it made me one smart girl.

Money made Hun one cooperative guy.

He looked down at the barrel jammed hard against his ribs, assuming he had any under that thick layer of blubber. Then he looked at the money. It was an easy choice. He reached over and took the money. “I heard of it. Some caver, Jeb, found it in an abandoned mine a few towns over. Don’t know why he calls it that. It’s not like a diamond or anything. Just a shiny quartz rock as big as your fist. The guy says it glows at night, but what’s that worth?” He spit in the dirt. “Nada.”

“And why’d he call it the Light of Life?” I didn’t move the gun. There’d been many a donkey who’d gotten the carrot and then kicked the crap out of the veggie farmer right after. I was content to wait until our conversation was over and Big Foot was back hammering at his shack.

He frowned, hiding the pearly whites. “I don’t know. He just did. From the minute he found it and came over to show it to me. The Light of Life, he kept calling it. But he’s a caver and cavers are nuts, so what the hell? He can call it whatever he wants.”

By the time I left, I had the revolver under the passenger seat, a layer of dust coating my car ’s red paint, and a giant gluteus maximus print on the hood. Call the National Enquirer. Sasquatch exists and here’s the proof—ass-print exclusives, fifty bucks a pop.

I also had Jeb the crazy caver’s address and wasn’t the day looking brighter and brighter? A particularly loud song blared on the radio and I slapped it off. The Light of Life. It was going to do two things for me. Two rewards rolled into one. It was going to get me something far more valuable than gold or diamonds and at the same time, a whole lot of nasty, nasty vengeance on the son of a bitch who’d killed my brother.

You’re supposed to take care of your younger brother, no matter how far he strays. Travel was in my family’s blood. That was a given. You still take care of your brother. No matter how far he goes. No matter what.

Kimano.

I stared blindly at the road. The black sheep of the family. Lazy, content with beaches and waves. Work could always wait another day. For all the ways he was so different from me, I loved him. Loved the hell out of him. Sure, there was work to be done, but it didn’t mean he always had to do it. That’s how far gone I was on my baby brother. Me. Bar owner, informant, occasional demon killer, and various other things best not spread around. I edged into the workaholic stage. But to me it had never mattered that my brother wasn’t like me. Kimano never failed to make me laugh. In all his life, he never failed . . .

But once.

Smooth brown skin covered with blood and torn to shreds, dark eyes staring blankly at the sky. I hadn’t laughed then. I hadn’t thought I’d ever laugh again.

Years later I’d learned to, but the true laughing I was waiting on, the laughing I craved with everything in me was the kind I would spill over the body of my brother’s killer. We all have days in our lives. The Day. The One. Weddings, births, hopscotching on the moon . . . this would be my day. And my patience was running thin. Now, with this—the Light—things were finally moving. Because they all wanted the Light. The demons—Below. And Eden House, which equaled Above.

Things were going to start moving and moving fast.

I’d listened and pried and questioned a long time now and with what I knew, I could have Kimano’s killer. Hell would turn him over in a heartbeat if I promised them the Light. And it had been a demon that had killed my brother. I was as sure of that as I was of anything. A demon kill . . . it wasn’t anything you ever forgot. And one dark silver-gray scale left behind.

One was all it took.

The demon wasn’t all I wanted. It was what I wanted the most, but still not all. It was asking for a lot, shooting for the moon, but sometimes . . . once in a rare while, you can have your cake and eat it too. I had better uses for the Light than Hell did—and Heaven . . .

They could get in line as well.