Trick of the Light Read Online Free PDF Page B

luck?”
    “No.” The roughness of Griffin’s combat-worn skin was an interesting sensation on my neck and his serious expression almost irresistible. Almost. Nothing had yet been able to let me forget they were anything but boys I’d all but raised for a few years, no matter what their ages now. Four or five years can be nothing, or it can be all the difference in the world.
    Plus . . . well . . . I smiled to myself, then moved his hand away.
    “Not luck,” I continued, giving the ice a break as Lenore sidled over to sit on my shoulder. “It’s a Pele’s tear from Hawaii. Lava that solidifies into the shape of a drop or tear, named for the Hawaiian goddess of fire and volcanoes.”
    “So you’ve been to Hawaii?” he asked curiously.
    “Once or twice. I wear it for my brother.” Lenore moved back to his roost and tucked his head under his wing. He picked up the emotion in my voice easily enough. So did Griffin.
    “A brother,” he said slowly. What he meant was, “You had a brother,” had not have , but he didn’t want to come out and say that, did he?
    I said it for him. “That’s right. I had a brother.” End of topic as I closed my lips tightly and went back to shoveling ice with a vengeance.
    Griffin turned the feather in his fingers, looking for a painless way out. Painless for me. “So you’ve been to Hawaii, but you never lived there? You’re not part Hawaiian, Trixa?”
    That did make me laugh. “Look at me, Griff. I’m part everything.” I untied the apron around my waist. “Watch the bar for me, would you? Just until Leo gets back.”
    Good-naturedly, especially for a demon killer, he moved behind the bar. “You really are going to give that bird a complex calling him a girl’s name.”
    I shrugged and smiled. “What else are you going to call a raven? Edgar Allan Poe? It’s a little long. But you can call him Lenny if it has your testosterone in an uproar.”
    He snorted, “I’ve noticed Leo and Lenny are never around at the same time. What are they? Superman and Clark Kent?”
    I shoved some money into my jeans pocket and figured my light sweater would do for a sunny November day; it was probably in the high sixties. “There was an incident. Bird crap, vacuum cleaner retaliation. It wasn’t a pretty sight. They tend to avoid each other now, which is probably for the best.” I gave him a quick wave and was gone. I had errands to do and it was a perfect blue-sky morning to do them. I took my car, blazing red as I liked most things in my life—red my favorite color and blazing my favorite philosophy—and drove slowly past the still-smoldering nightclub. I lowered the window to catch a whiff of smoke. A floating memory in the air. Talk about warming your heart.
    I did the rest of my chores in a few hours and was back at the bar with four grocery bags of frozen mini-pizzas, potato skins, and fried cheese of varied colors. Lenore was gone, and Leo and Griffin were watching the small TV mounted over the bar. The rest of the bar was empty except for one guy dozing at a corner table.
    “What’s up? Did they vote another demon into office?” I demanded, putting the bags down with a loud thunk that said, Thanks so much for the help . “Not that they do much worse than humans sometimes.”
    “No, someone was eaten at the zoo,” Griffin said absently, still watching. “At least, the vast majority of him was eaten.”
    I wasn’t a fan of the zoo. I didn’t like to see animals locked up, but I’d been on occasion. The TV was showing a security tape of a little girl, maybe four, sitting on a bench by herself. She had long, light brown hair, melancholy dark brown eyes that could break your heart, and was dressed in a yellow top, pants, and matching tennies, with a red balloon in her hand. Now, wasn’t that a coincidence. She liked red too, and she watched the balloon float in the air with those wide, wistful eyes. If her parents were around, they didn’t show up. The only immediate