I met Griffin and Zeke at Caesars Palace. Zeke had been banned from the Venetian for trying to drown in one of the canals a demon disguised as a singing, then gurgling, gondolier. He’d also been blacklisted at the Luxor for excessive buffet use in one sitting. Zeke was not precisely a Renaissance man. When it came to killing demons and loyalty, he was at the top of his game. When it came to everything else—that’s why insurance existed. He either didn’t get it and didn’t want to get it. Or he wanted to get it and you’d better get your ass out of his way.

Twenty minutes later I was walking past centurions with much better teeth than the genuine ones had had, breathed in air touched with smoke, adrenaline, and despair, and tracked down Griffin and Zeke in one of the bars on the floor of the casino. They were in a small booth in a gloom-filled corner. That was Vegas—all blinding sun outside but always twilight inside—no matter what time of the day. Illusions were kept whole by those shadows and Vegas itself was one big illusion. Inside that illusion, Zeke was nursing a beer and his partner an untouched whiskey from the smell of it when I sat beside him. The alcohol was camouflage or at least it was supposed to be. “Someone having a bad day?” I nodded at the half-empty beer.

“We came by the pool and Zeke had to walk past the buffet.” Griffin gave his partner a shoulder bump. “Like Romeo and Juliet. Star-crossed lovers destined to forever be apart.” Zeke didn’t respond beyond sliding down a few inches and having another swallow of beer.

“Don’t worry, Romeo.” I patted his hand resting on the table. “The Luxor can’t have e-mailed your picture to every buffet in town and new ones are opening almost every day.”

“I hate people,” he grumbled. “‘All you can eat’ means all you can eat. Lying bastards.”

I patted him again. “I know. They’re very bad and I’ll punish them for you, I promise.” After all, it wasn’t that different from the farmer and his apple, and my punishment wouldn’t involve gunfire. I couldn’t say the same about Zeke in action. “But let’s concentrate on finding a demon to chat with right now.”

“Chat.” He perked up and moved his hand inside his jacket to rest on one of the guns he always carried in a shoulder holster. His Colt Anaconda wasn’t one of those. I wasn’t sure they made shoulder holsters big enough for a weapon of that size. “Chatting is good.”

“Not that kind of chatting,” Griffin corrected. “We don’t kill demons....”

“In front of people. We don’t kill demons in front of cameras—video or digital,” Zeke recited with a bored expression, before adding, “And we don’t kill demons in front of puppies.” He let go of his gun and used his hand to tilt the beer bottle at me. “I made up that rule myself. Apparently puppies are easily mentally scarred. Griffin brings them up in my tutoring often enough, so it’s gotta be true.”

Griffin had “tutored” Zeke in his decision-making skills for so long and with every scenario he could possibly bring to mind—be it saving kids versus killing demons to saving a politician versus killing demons, which was a tough one regardless of how slippery your grip on free will—that I wasn’t surprised to see Zeke giving him a hard time about it. I enjoyed it, in fact. Zeke had come a long way on a very treacherous path. He deserved to dish out a little mockery.

“So I hear,” I agreed solemnly. “Now, spread out and let’s reel in a fish.”

Griffin had his empathy to feel a demon’s emotions; Zeke had his telepathy to hear their thoughts. I didn’t envy either of them those abilities. The things that demons thought, the things they felt—none of it could be pleasant. As for me, I had the eyes my mama gave me, which was all I needed. I made my way through tourists who had money pouring through their fingers like sand, I studied blackjack dealers who might promise to turn Lady Luck around if given the proper incentive, but it turned out Zeke was the first to snare one. It trailed behind him like one of those puppies Griffin was so concerned about in his lesson plans. That it was Zeke that the demon had honed in on told me something immediately. This wasn’t one of the lower-level demons. They liked the easy marks. Get in, get the IOU on the soul, and get out. They didn’t like the difficult prey when Vegas was so full of ones they could hook in two seconds. This demon obviously liked a challenge, because no one put off “I don’t care” and “Get the hell away from me” like Zeke did. And while Griffin had taught him the basics of hiding his emotions just as Zeke had taught his partner the same about concealing thoughts, Zeke rarely could manage to completely hide his hostility toward demons.

This one was definitely bored and thought Zeke was his Mount Everest. That made him higher level, but hopefully not as high as Eli was. We were in a public place and there was only so much we could do there. But that also meant there was only so much he could do as well. Griffin and I made our way out of the wandering gamblers and walked back into the bar as we saw Zeke make his move. By the time we joined him, he was staring at the demon sitting beside him in the booth with the same expression he would’ve used for regarding dog shit on the bottom of his shoe. It didn’t bother the demon, obviously, as he continued to talk smoothly.

“Okay, I got one first,” Zeke said as I, and then Griffin, sat to one side of the demon, boxing him between us and fellow demon bait. “What do I win?”

The demon, a man with prematurely bright silver hair, ferociously intelligent eyes, a killer tan, and an absolutely amazing accent that made you think you were back on Fantasy Island, let his salesman smile flicker. He knew something was up. He was a smart one all right and that made him only more dangerous. “What is happening? I was but speaking with my new friend. Zeke, you said your name was, yes, my friend? I am Armand.”

Zeke went back to his beer bottle with his left hand.... His right was ready and waiting for a go at his gun. “We always want the ones who don’t want us. Don’t take it personally,” I told the demon, resting a faux friendly hand on his shoulder . . . holding him here. No quick trip back to Hell for him.

“Eden House,” he said flatly, the accent disappearing and the charisma going with it. The eyes went from fierce to carnivorous. He knew his potential deal had gone bad from that very moment. I was surprised that Eli let another demon almost as quick-witted as he operate in what he now considered his city. “You’re supposed to all be dead.”

“You shouldn’t listen to gossip. Look what happened to Eve,” I tsked. Eli hadn’t told the other demons about my trickster status . . . as he knew it anyway. That was pure demon and pure Eli. When it was nine hundred of his colleagues dead, he was concerned, but if I took out ten or twenty, that only cleared out the playing field for him a little—lessened the competition.

And if this particular competitor wanted to think I was Eden House, I didn’t mind being their mascot for this conversation. “But speaking of gossip, your co-worker Eligos mentioned that someone was taking you out, knoshing on you by the hundreds like marshmallow Peeps. Those are good, aren’t they?” I mused. “Pink or yellow, I’ve never had a preference,” I said with nostalgia for last year’s Easter, giving a quick thank-you to the German fertility goddess, Ēostre, and her candy-loving hares. Credit where credit is due. Then I forgot about sticky sweetness and got down to business. “So, sugar, have you heard anything about that?”

“Eligos talked to you?” he said with disbelief. “An Eden House lackey, spitting feathers with every word. I sincerely doubt that.”

“The last standing of our House and we talk to Eligos and walk away,” Griffin said coldly. In anyone’s eyes, Above or Below, that made us pretty damn tough. “We are not to be fucked with.” That too.