Today is the official launch day for Rob Thurman’s second Trickster Novel — THE GRIMROSE PATH! Below is the teaser synopsis, prologue, and the first chapter. As always, Rob (aka Robyn) needs your help getting her first week sales as high as she can — the better to make the New York Times bestseller list! So please help Rob out and buy your copy of THE GRIMROSE PATH this week. : )
In return, Rob will help you out by offering some SERIOUS prizes. You know the drill — comment on this blog post and make like “Animal” from The Muppets — “Me Want Prize!”
I’ll be naming two winners tomorrow.
Here’s how to enter and a list of the booty to be won (in Rob’s own words):
“The Grimrose Path contest is here (as I just arrived back from working Dragon*Con.) Grimrose Path’s release date is today…Sept 7th and if you buy a copy this week (preferably from an actual bookstore…support your bookstores, people) between today and Sept 14th you may win either one my books (your choice…five to be given away), a Chris McGrath print**** (of your choice, 30 bucks of stunning, kick-ass value), a Leverage T-shirt (one Hitter, one Hacker), and I’ll also be giving away TWO Dragon*Con posters. (The Big Bang Bag is unfortunately off the table as it is now a Big Bang dog chew toy.) Comment here or on LJ to consider yourself entered and don’t forget, in the back of Grimrose Path is Chapter One bonus teaser for Cal 6: Blackout (March 2011.) If that doesn’t get ya, nothing will. Now check out this poster from Dragon*Con you might win. Is it the shit or what??? (PS…still having difficulty loading images into a post. Sorry, guys. A link will have to do, but it is WELL WORTH seeing and winning.) ( http://tinyurl.com/394ggjb )”
THE GRIMROSE PATH (synopsis)
Bar owner Trixa Iktomi knows that inhuman creatures of light and darkness roam Las Vegas-especially since she’s a bit more than human herself. She’s just been approached with an unusual proposition. Something has slaughtered almost one thousand demons in six months. And the killing isn’t going to stop unless Trixa and her friends step into the fight..
The Grimrose Path
Prologue
Spilt milk.
My mama had a saying for every occasion under the sun, but even she didn’t lay claim to that one. I didn’t know who did, but everyone had heard it. It had been around forever. Don’t cry over spilt milk. There’s no point to it. You can’t change it, can’t put it back, can’t make it better. You simply cleaned it up and went on.
Because that was life. Life wasn’t always fair. And some things in life couldn’t be undone. They could be avenged–damn straight, they could—but not undone.
They could teach a lesson…if anyone was around to learn from it. Or smart enough to get the point.
Yet the bottom line was always the same, spilt milk was spilt milk. An inconvenience or a pain; an annoyance or sometimes even a tragedy. But whichever it was, it didn’t matter. You might want to, but couldn’t turn back time. You couldn’t close your eyes and pretend it was a bad dream. You couldn’t avoid the truth and that was a cold hard fact.
You couldn’t unspill that milk.
You couldn’t make it better. You couldn’t make it right.
I stood and looked at the shattered glass, jagged tears glinting in the sun. I looked at the metal coated with blood—so very much blood—the same color as the darkest crimson rose, and I decided the hell with old sayings
I was undoing this.
I was making this right.
And I’d like to see the son of a bitch who thought he could stop me.
Chapter 1
Life was a trick.
That was what it boiled down to in the end; life was one big trick, one huge April Fool’s. You might think that could be a bad thing…depending on whether you were on the giving or receiving end. But that didn’t matter as much as you’d think it would. It was what it was. At the very end of it, we all ended up on both sides. The universe was fair that way, because everyone, without exception, had something to learn. We were all naughty in one way or another.
And tricks were lessons in disguise. They taught you right from wrong, safe from dangerous, bad seafood salad from good seafood salad. Have you ever had bad seafood salad? That’s the worst eighteen hours of your life and a lesson you’ll never forget. He you ever put an old lady in the hospital after mugging her of her Social Security check? The lesson regarding that, you might not live long enough to remember or forget.
Life was a trick, a trick was a lesson, and I was a teacher—the majority of the time. I didn’t teach in a school. The world was my school, and I had a zero tolerance policy. I taught the teachable and the others? Those who couldn’t or wouldn’t learn? What’s a girl to do in that situation?
Apply a ‘Darwin’s Rules’ attitude and let the pieces fall where they may.
My name is Trixa. That was one of the names I’d had in my lifetime, one of many—we con artists had quite a few. This one though…this one was one of my favorites, because I was a trickster, born and bred of one of many trickster races. It was why I enjoyed the name so much. I’d rubbed who I was in the face of my enemies for the past ten years and not once had they seen past a simple name. Demons, some are stupid and some are bright, but all are arrogant, which made them blind. The same went for angels. Since they were flip sides to the same coin, it wasn’t surprising. And humans…don’t even get me started on humans. They were the entire reason we tricksters existed. Or since we had pre-dated them, I guess we chose them as a reason to exist. The supernatural world never was quite as much fun to fool, to put in their place, and life can become fairly pointless without a purpose. Everyone needed a purpose.
Without a purpose, why get up in the morning? Why eat? Why not just meld with the earth that made you and wait to turn into fertilizer? Someone could grow some nice marigolds in you. I liked marigolds, but they weren’t much of a career choice.
Taking humans down a notch or ten, that was a purpose all right, and damn entertaining, too. Not that I ever received a shiny red apple for educating the masses, but taking pride—and the more than occasional excessive glee—in my work, that was enough. Although jewelry would’ve been nice, too. I liked jewelry better than marigolds.
There were a variety of tricksters loose in the world. Pucks, also known as Pan, Robin Goodfellow, Hob, and so on. They were one race of identical brown haired, green-eyed cocky immortals. All male—in appearance anyway. A person would need several PhDs in biology to get a handle on their actual reproduction, but you didn’t need a GED to get a handle on anything else regarding them, physically speaking. Sexually speaking. Not speaking at all because it was rude to with your mouth full. They not only co-wrote the Kama Sutra, but they posed for it as well, that’s all I’m saying.
There was my partner at the bar, Leo, better known as Loki, who was a god first and foremost, and only a trickster because he was good at it and liked it, not because he’d been born one. His was a calling, not a birthright. There were also those among us that were just spirit…energy, gossamer molecules strung together like a kite string, no more solid than the wind, and even I had trouble understanding them. And kicking back to have a Margarita with them to talk work, that was completely out of the question.
Then there was my kind. Shape-shifters. We were hundreds, thousands of legends. Coyote, Kitsune, Kokopelli, Nasreddin, Raven, Maui, Veles, too many to name. Most people had long forgotten those names, but we were still only a Wiki away. We weren’t immortal, but we didn’t have to worry about watching our cholesterol either. I’d been around to see the sky darken half a world away when Pompeii had died. My brother and I had watched it and for a moment we were put in our place. We had held hands and felt an unfamiliar feeling of mortality sharp and cold cut through us as the sky turned from blue to black. We could trick all we wanted, but nature itself would always have the last laugh.
But now? Now I was still a trickster, but a shape-shifter no more. I was a thirty-one year old human —I was actually all human races on earth. I had done that always. Genes speak to genes on a level people can’t begin to detect, and if I were all people, then I went into every situation with the tiniest of edges, my foot in the door. It had been more helpful back in the day…when family, clan, tribe had mattered to a constantly warring people. They were still constantly warring, but the genes mattered a lot less now. And that was a good development for humanity in general, but I still tried to keep that edge.
While I was all races, two did rise to the top. That’s what people saw. Eyes I’d admired the last time I’d been on the Japanese Islands, the mouth that was fond memory of the years I’d spent in Africa, and wildly corkscrewed black curls and skin that was a mixture of both places. I’d spent a lot of time rethinking that hair every morning when I fought the good fight with it and usually had my ass kicked and my brush broken. Ah, well, who the hell was I to say what it should do anyway?
Did all of that make me a romance heroine who had men flinging themselves at my feet to protect my dainty foot from a puddle? Carrying all my groceries like I was a fairy princess with a wet manicure? Hell, no. It had them tilting their heads trying to figure me out. People liked to label things. I puzzled them, which was good. People needed to be puzzled, curious, unsure. That’s what kept you alive in this world. It’s what makes life interesting.
No, I wasn’t beautiful. I chose this body. I made it. Why would I want to be beautiful? Fields of wildflowers were beautiful. Waterfalls were beautiful. Secluded beaches were beautiful. Size zero vacant eyed and vacant stomached runway models were beautiful…at least that’s what society told us, but society had a vacant brain to match those vacant eyes. But none of those things, vacant or otherwise, could put a pointed heel of a boot through a demon’s stomach and a bullet in his scaly forehead. I could. I was unique.
I could not…would not be tagged, identified, or stamped.
Unless it was by the fashion industry. I scowled at the sweat pants and T-shirt I was wearing as I came down the stairs that led to my apartment over my bar Trixsta. The sign in the window was red neon to match everything else red in my life. Did that mean I wore a lot of red clothing? Maybe. But more than that, it meant that I signed my work with the color, and I still did my work, my true work—human or not.
And Las Vegas was the perfect place to do it—a city of deceit and sin. It was a wonderland for both tricksters and demons. We did have demons a-plenty, but as far as I knew there were only two tricksters here currently: me and the one fiddling with the television.
Leo turned the TV on and wiped a film of beer off the screen. My bar was small, the brains of my clientele even smaller. It was the only excuse to waste good beer. Or mediocre beer with good beer prices. If you couldn’t tell the difference, that was your lesson for the day. But the thought of making money off the drunken or idiotic couldn’t cheer me now, not with what I had to do.
“Exercise,” I muttered and then repeated it because it was simply that horrifying. “Exercise.” I glared at Leo as if it were his fault. It wasn’t, but he was the only one around to blame, so I took the opportunity. “I have to go run, lift weights, and do other things banned by the Geneva Convention. If your Internet steroids arrive, don’t go wild and take them all at once.”
With the long black hair pulled into a tight braid, the copper skin, and the eyes dark as his hair, he looked pure American Indian, and he would look that way for four or five more years. But all of that disappeared in front of me and where Leo had stood flapped a raven who croaked, “Must be jelly. Jam don’t shake like that.” I thought about swinging at him, but settled for retying the knot on my sweat pants. Lenny or Lenore, as we called him in raven form—Poe, you couldn’t avoid it—landed on the bar. “Want fries with that shake?” he added as he preened a feather.
“You’ll be the one who’s fried and served up with mashed potatoes and cornbread stuffing when I get back,” I promised, enjoying the vengeful mental image. “I’ll make you the early Thanksgiving special.”
If birds could snort, Lenny would have. At one time, three months ago, Leo might’ve been able to give me something to think about. After all he’d been a god, I wasn’t. But both of us were human, more or less, now, at least for the next four or five years thanks to my showing off and an artifact who thought the experience might do Leo some good. For me, no shape shifting powers, no powers of any kind except a natural biological defense against telepathy and empathy. Maybe Leo was one up on me. He was stuck in human or bird form. And it was my fault. I’d drained my batteries by overusing my powers to take down the killer of my brother in an extremely showy and vengeful way. I wasn’t sorry. He’d deserved it. He’d killed my family, my only sibling. An artifact, more powerful than Leo and I combined, that I’d been using as a bargaining chip against Heaven and Hell had thought at the time that I was a good influence on Leo/Loki. The Light of Life, the artifact, had decided he should stick around with me for those four years it would take me to recover. It neutered him–on the god part at least. The rest of him, I assumed, was in working condition.
My mama had laughed herself sick when I told her anyone or anything thought I was a good influence. Then again, Leo had been very, very bad in his day. He had once wanted to end the world and that had just been for kicks. Ragnarok, the Norse end of days, and it had only been a way to waste a boring afternoon. But that had been when he was Loki, a long time and a lot of raging darkness ago. He was different now. So many say they want to change, he was one of the few I’d seen do it. One of the few with a will stronger than the shadows that had filled him up.
Ancient artifact or not, he would’ve stayed with me, to help if worse came to worse. He was that way. I would’ve done it for him if the situation were reversed. Friends…you didn’t take them for granted. But that didn’t mean I had to listen to his jokes about my ass. That was the great thing about being a shape shifter. Calories? Fat grams? Whatever. Turn them into extra hair or an extra inch in height or shed them as pounds of water. Or in the other direction, if you wanted to be a two hundred-pound Coyote with the voice of an avalanche, take the extra you needed from the dirt, rock, or the moisture soaked air around you.
But now I was human and had discovered living off diner food…it was less than a block away, what could I do?…packed on five pounds in two weeks. She Who Would Not be Labeled had become She Who Must Find the Nearest Gym. Leo, with his damn male metabolism, was still sucking down all that was fried with no signs of a pot belly as of yet.
Men. I hated men sometimes.
But I hated demons more. And as I ran down the sidewalk towards the grubby gym seven or eight blocks away, I got to prove it.
I kept a slow and steady pace. It was February now and still not too bad. When it came to summer, I’d drive to the gym, seven blocks or not. If you ran in the Vegas summer heat, you were either insane, suicidal, or a fire salamander out for a stroll. I ran past porn stores, liquor stores, more porn stores, a tiny car lot…and that’s where I stopped. A car salesman. A used car salesman. If you’re after someone’s soul you should be a little more imaginative with your disguises than that.
Not that this guy was after someone’s soul. I usually didn’t interfere there. That was between Heaven and Hell and that tug-of-war known as humanity that lay between them. They had some reasonable enough rules set up. First, you had to be of age—mature mentally…no trading your soul for a Tonka Toy or a pony. These days that tended to mean you were old enough to drink, vote, and die. Second, you couldn’t trade your soul for a noble and selfless act. You couldn’t trade it to save the polar bears or stop world poverty or even save your child. Hell and demons either weren’t allowed or simply couldn’t do good, no matter how many souls they received in exchange. Which made sense—evil did not beget good–although bad luck for the polar bears.
No, Heaven and Hell could play all the games they wanted. As one puck had first said a long time ago, caveat emptor. Buyer beware. Grown up boys and girls should know better and if they don’t, well, Darwin had something to say about that too.
But this sleazy guy, demons and pucks—they both loved the used car salesman front, wasn’t after a soul. He was after some old fashioned fun. Ripping, shredding, tearing a man to pieces and if his soul whizzed upward like a skyrocket, I doubt the demon much cared. Maybe he wasn’t hungry. Demons ate souls. God no longer sustained them with his light and love and Lucifer was Fallen himself. He couldn’t. So demons had to feed themselves and Hell was nothing but one big pantry. But demons enjoyed other things that a light snack. They had hobbies the same as anyone else. Theirs simply happened to be killing. To a one, killing was their one true passion. Trading for souls was entertaining and good nutrition, but killing someone….
Souls were a McDonald’s hamburger, but killing for sheer butchery alone was an all day ride at the amusement park. This demon was going for the loop to loop rollercoaster all the way. It was Sunday and the lot was closed, but he had lured some dumb ass tourist lost from the main strip into the lot. The road to Hell is paved with a lot of things…some of them Hyundais. I sighed, hopped the rope that acted as an imaginary barrier between sidewalk and lot to follow the two men inside the tiny two cubicle office. The shades were down. In Vegas, winter or summer, the shades are always down or that purple couch you bought six months ago will now be lavender, and a pale lavender at that.
Rather the same shade as the face of the tourist who was panicked and struggling to escape the one hand that held him by the neck. He was bent backwards over a desk, his flailing arms knocking papers and salesman of the year awards onto the floor, and sometimes…just once in a while, you did get annoyed with the gullible. But you were more annoyed with one damn stupid demon who had set up shop literally six blocks from your territory. A human had been running this place three days ago, a pot-bellied pig shaped man with a comb-over and enough nose hair to trim into bonsai trees. That alone marked him as non-demon, but he was gone now and a demon had moved into his place.
Demons were so easy to spot it wasn’t even close to a challenge. This one: shiny blond hair, soulful brown eyes, not one but two dimples, and he threw off sex appeal by the bucketfuls–plus a manly I-could-be-your-best-bro, bro. He would appeal to men, women, and little old ladies. His charisma covered the spectrum. As I had made this body, so did demons make theirs. And they always liked theirs bright and shiny as a new penny. It was bait after all, part of the lure.
“Six blocks.” I pulled my gun, a Smith and Wesson 500, from the holster in the small of my back. That’s why I kept my T-shirt loose. To cover the toys. “You set up your perch here,” I waved my other hand at the room around us, “sniffing for the innocent, the unwary, and the moronic like this guy, and you do it six blocks from my place. My home. My territory.” He gaped at me. While I hadn’t bothered to find out about him before now, neither had he bothered to do the same regarding me. A little sloppy on my part, a little lethal on his. The sloppiness stopped now. I blew his head off before he had time to blink his eyes or blink back to Hell.
He shimmered for a second into a man sized brownish-green lizard with dragon wings, dirty glass teeth, a once narrow but now shattered reptilian head, and oozing eye sockets. The Smith had taken care of that. I doubt his eyes been that same soft and soulful brown anyway. Then he was a pool of black goo on the worn carpet of the office, and while I felt for the cleaning lady, I had security tapes to wipe, a tourist to toss out on the street, and still get to the gym before all the elliptical trainers were taken. The tourist rolled to the floor, gurgled, and either passed out from lack of oxygen or lack of intestinal fortitude (balls for the more succinct of us.) I wasn’t disappointed. A little judgmental, but not disappointed. It would actually make things easier on me.
“Good old what’s-his-name. I’m surprised he lived to this millennium.” The voice came from behind me. A familiar one, not in a good way either. I looked over my shoulder to see Eligos, call-me-Eli, he would always grin—one that would suck the oxygen out of a room and half the brain cells out of your head.
If you were human. Really human, not just temporarily human. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t tell he was something to see all the same. Damned and damn hot, what a combo. And very probably the smartest demon I’d come across. What Hollywood likes to call a triple threat.
“You can’t even remember his name?” I kept the gun loose and easy in my grip and blew a curl that had escaped my pony tail holder out of my eyes. “Some brotherly love there.”
“Would you have me sing Danny Boy?” He was sitting on the other desk, one knee up, chin propped in his hand. His hazel eyes—if bright copper and green could be called hazel—cheerful. “I have an amazing singing voice. I could’ve been Elvis. But I did eat him, so six of one, half dozen of the other. You always have to be specific with the trades. Famous singer…good. Famous singer who doesn’t swell to the size of Shamu on fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches…better. But humans aren’t very detail oriented. Short attention span. They’re ‘Tomorrow is another day.’ Yadda yadda yadda..” He switched from leaning forward to leaning back and locked his hands across his stomach. “But all beside the point. I want to talk to you Trixa.”
“Your attention span isn’t all that either, Eli, or do you remember what happened to the last demon I ‘talked’ to?” And I wasn’t talking about the one I’d just blown away. He’d barely been worth breaking stride for. I was talking about Solomon, my brother’s murderer.
“Oh, I remember. I’ll remember that for all eternity.” He smiled, so brilliant and white that an orthodontist would’ve fell to the floor and genuflected before him. “A. you made me piss a pair of Armani jeans that I was quite fond of. And B. you gave me the challenge that will occupy me to the end of time. Or the end of you, whichever comes first. It was worth losing the Light to you paien for that. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been challenged? Not since the Fall.” He shrugged and waffled a hand. “And even then, eh, we knew it was coming. Truthfully, I didn’t care if we ruled in Heaven or not. I just wanted to mix it up. Make a little trouble.” The smile was even brighter. “Because, Trixa, sweetheart, trouble is the only thing that makes existence bearable.”
I’d promised the Light, an artifact from even before paien time, to Eli if he verified that the demon I’d suspected killed my brother was the real deal. He delivered. I didn’t. I lied. Sue me. I’m a trickster. I lie, cheat, steal…it all comes with the name. Although I did it mostly to show a few humans the error of their wicked ways, make them a little better, and hopefully a whole lot brighter. But Eli hadn’t known that at the time. The same as everyone else, he’d thought me human. But when it all went down—the taking of the Light, an unbreakable shield that would protect paien from Heaven and Hell, neither of whom much cared for us, and the passing of Solomon—Eli had seen little Trixa in a whole new way. When I’d finished with Solomon, before he melted to the black of liquid sin, he’d been in so many pieces it looked like it had been raining demon parts. I’d shape-changed my little heart out on that one, not that I had a heart in regards to Kimano’s killer. But I had been something to see and be. Bear. Wolf. Fox. Spider. Crow. Dragon. Shark. All in one. And as I’d told Solomon then, when ranked, it went something like this, gods, then tricksters, and then a damn sight lower…demons. I’d told him and I’d proved it.
And Eli had been part of the audience.
As far as he knew, I was still trickster, shapechanger, all that had made Solomon look like he’d fallen into a woodchipper. And I had my shielding against empathic and telepathic probes to keep Eli thinking I remained all that I’d been. Angels had telepathy, and a host of another annoying habits, while demons had empathy. It made it so much easier to trade for a soul when you could feel exactly what a person desired.
I needed to keep Eli believing I was a trickster at the top of her form, because while the ranking went gods, tricksters, demons…humans were far enough below a high level demon like Eli that you’d need binoculars to see them. I still had my trickster mind, but I had a human body and that made things a bit more difficult.
“Fine. If you want trouble,” I checked my watch, “I can spare five minutes. That should give me time to kill you, wipe the tapes, and maybe browse for a new car while I’m at it.” I smiled. I doubted I was too impressive a sight right then. An explosion of messy waves and curls anchored at the crown of my head with a pony tail holder. No make up. The shirt that snarky Leo had had made for me that said Slayer Not Layer on the front in the same bright red color as my sweat pants and a pair of beat up sneakers. But Eli wasn’t seeing me now, he was seeing me then, and I had that going for me for a few months at least.
“Oh, I want trouble.” His eyes darkened and it wasn’t with anger. Some serial killers had horrific childhoods that had tangled sexual and homicidal urges into one black, strangling noose. Demons had only needed that one spat with Daddy to get them there. “But it’ll have to be another time. I want to talk to you about some demons.” He straightened, turning serious…as serious as Eli came anyway. “Dead demons. Quite a few dead demons.”
I tapped the barrel of my gun against my leg. “Really?” Now there was the best news I’d heard all day. “You want to throw a party at my place? I’ll even throw in an open bar for the occasion, because, sugar, I am that excited about it. How many demons are we talking about? Fifty? Because I can do a theme party. Muerte del día de los Demonios. Death of demons day. Like Cinco de Mayo only with pinatas that have little horns and forked tails.”
“Cute. You’re so adorable when you’re tearing apart my rivals and blathering on about something to which you have no utter fucking clue.” He smiled again, this time the white teeth had turned to the mouthful of smoky quartz fangs. “But that’s fine. I’m happy to have this conversation later. Maybe I’ll go out and occupy the time by burning down a church. Barbecuing the faithful. I always enjoy that. A big side of coleslaw and I’ll be in hog you-know-where.” At the last word, he pointed a finger skyward and mock fired it.
Technically, that was Heaven’s problem, not mine, but despite the lying, cheating, and stealing part, I did have a conscience. Most tricksters did, as much as we’d deny it. And the fact that Eli wasn’t in the mood for a little verbal sparring was unusual enough to pique my interest.
I sat on the other desk and rested my feet on the large belly of the still unconscious tourist. “Okay, grumpy hooves. I’ll give you those five minutes. I’ll even listen to you during then instead of killing you, because I’m sweet as cotton candy that way.” I checked my watch again and snapped my own fingers. “Go.”
And go he did. It wasn’t fifty demons that had died. It wasn’t even a hundred. That wouldn’t be that unusual. Demons killed paien for sport and tricksters killed demons because of it. All paien weren’t tricksters. There were vampires, Wolves (werewolves to the fictionally inclined), nymphs, sprites, boggles, revenants, trolls, chubacabra, pukas, and thousands more. Some could take a demon and some couldn’t. So, if a hundred demons died in the past few years, that would be normal.
Nine-hundred and fifty-six in six months was not normal.
I raised my eyebrows. “All right. I see your point. Someone has been eating their Wheaties, taking their vitamins, and chugging a whole lot of Red Bull on top of that.” Inside I had more of a holy shit, the sky is falling, don’t let the demon see you sweat attitude going on. Something that could do that…. “Maybe Upstairs has decided to do some old fashioned smiting of the wicked and wanton. And let’s face it…you are both.”
His teeth became human again as the smile became smug. “True. Wicked and wanton and I stand by my record placing in the top ten in my particular region of Hell. But, no. Not even in the War…or the Sacred Scuffle, Police Action, Hallowed Hoe-down, take your pick, we didn’t lose a third so many. Who do you think was most likely to rebel? The holiest of the holy? The Precious Moments Angels? The simpering weaklings who were no better than fluffy baby ducks with halos?” He snorted. “No. We were the warriors. God’s Righteous Fury. The Smiters, sweetheart, not the Smitees. Granted, we did pick up a mess of messenger angels, watcher angels–the minimum wage pigeons who just did what they were told to do. And at that moment Lucifer was talking the loudest and God was letting the angels make their own choice. So we ended up with some weak-minded fluffy ducks after all. Like him.” He jerked his head at the stain on the floor. “But even Daffy there, to lose over nine-hundred of him in six months? That is….” He shook his head and slid on a pair of sunglasses. “I don’t know what that is. No one seems to.”
I still kept my gun out as he slid down from the desk and headed for the door. Demons, higher level demons like Eligos, moved faster than humans did. And while I’d given myself an Olympic conditioned human body when creating it, Olympic or not, it was still human…and five pounds heavier. “It’s odd, impressive, and, all right, a little more than freaky, but why should I care? Whatever this is could kill every demon in Hell and it’s not going to get my ovaries in a twist. There’s a whole lot of I-don’t-care in this general area,” I waved my free hand around me. “You kill my kind. I kill yours. This seems like a good thing for me and mine.” I wasn’t that stupid. If someone or something out there could do what Eli said, it was bad, bad news, because who knew when your kind might be….
“Next,” Eli finished for me as he opened the door, a few blonde hairs glittering in the dark brown of his hair, and looked back over his shoulder. Posed rather. Demons did like the hot rides they’d created to be admired. “I don’t need to be an angel. I don’t need telepathy to read that thought. I only have to know how smart you are. And that’s almost as smart as you think.” He grinned. “Nice T-shirt, by the way. Can’t wait to prove it wrong.”
The door closed and I slowly holstered my gun. Almost a thousand demons in six months.
Not even on my best year ever. And while I didn’t care about the dead demons…no crying over spilt sociopaths…I did wonder what this thing might do if demons started to bore it. I headed for the door myself, making a mental list of anything and everything I knew of throughout history, mine and the world’s, that could do something like this.
It was a very short list.
ME WANT PRIZE!!!
“Me want prize!”
WOW what a brilliant giveaway! I really enjoyed the first book with Trixia and the boys in it really was fantastic and she is one kick ass woman!
Reading the prologue it’s really made excited for the actual book. Can’t wait1 *dances*
Rob deserves to get to the bestseller lists because she is awesome and her work is always brilliant too.
Me want prize!! I love Rob’s books and am looking forward to diving into The Grimrose Path. I’ve been looking forward to more of Trixa and the boys since Trick of the Light.
Me is Animal, and me want book! Please.
Me want prize! Thanks, Lisa, for plugging other authors! It’s always a good day when I add a recommended author to my to-be-read book list.
Me want prize! Me going to get book now! (seriously, walking out the door to go get it
Thanks Lisa for the heads up on another fantastic book!
Thank you, everyone! Robyn really appreciates it! (She’s flying back from DragonCon right now, so I’m promoting THE GRIMROSE PATH in her stead.) ; )
Lisa
ME WANT PRIZE!!!!!! Lisa, I’ve been the biggest fan of Rob Thurman’s work and I have to say her Nightlife series is my favorite. When I found out she has a sequel to the trick of light, I fought off the urge to pre-order it. I’m going to Barnes and noble to support her as an author to get her to the NYT bestseller list!
Just realised I completely forgot the whole ME WANT PRIZE! hehe sorry
*blushes*
Me Want Prize! ^_^
Snazzy!
Me want prize!!
Me want prize! Me hungry, want meat.
I most assuredly would appreciate the prize. ME WANT PRIZE.
Me want prize! Have gift card for B&N and plan to use it on Saturday to buy Grimrose Path. Just finished Trick of the Light and am smitten with Griffin.
Me want prize! LOL!! This book looks GREAT – thanks for posting this Lisa and thanks for writing what a great sounding book Rob!
Me want prize!
Me want prize!
ME Want Prize!
Thanks for telling us about other authors. Prior to reading your posts, I did not pick up a Rob Thurman book.
Great work! Keep posting good work. Thanks a lot!
akoya cultured pearl,
Where is the contact page because i cant seem to find the form, maybe the admin might want to make it more easier to view.