by Jamie Wyman
I took one of the chairs in front of his desk. To my added surprise, Loki sat in the other one, beside me, rather than the regal wingback. He didn’t say anything. The god leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers together in his lap, waiting.
My eyes darted around the room without actually seeing anything as my mind whirred along, connecting the dots. “The whole time?” I whispered.
Again, Loki moved his mouth, and Tully’s voice came out. “If a light bulb so much as flickers, my boss will grind me to a pulp and serve me up for tacos on the ten-dollar buffet.”
“You’re Tully?”
“Yes,” he said quietly.
“So what?” I stammered. “He’s never been real? It’s been you all this time?”
Loki’s chin dipped in silent assent.
I choked on words I couldn’t form. I’d known Tully, at least as a colleague, since just after I moved out of Dahlia’s place. Though he wasn’t someone I hung out with, David Tullemore was a friend. I replayed conversations we’d had over servers and bad wiring, about his life, his complaints about his boss…
“He had a wife.”
“And so do I.”
My stomach rolled with a hollow pain. “This whole time it’s been you,” I said again. In trying to divine the god’s reasons I succeeded in twisting my mind into a pretzel. “Why? I can’t figure it out. Why go through all this?”
Loki stood and moved around his desk. He closed his laptop and curled it against his body. “I need you to come with me. I have a task for you.”
I threw my hands up in frustration. “And here I’d hoped you’d be different than Eris. Come here. Do this. Game after game. You’re exactly like her, aren’t you?”
Those arctic eyes burned as he scowled at me. “That jealous bitch and I may be cut of similar cloth, but do not ever compare me to the Mistress of Discord. You know how this works. I am the keeper of your soul. Nothing much changes, Catherine Sharp. You are still my employee as you were yesterday and the day before that. Today, this relationship is more direct. Now, please come with me.”
Without another word, Loki spun on his heel and breezed out into the hall. I passed Mel’s office and saw him shaking his head. I wondered what it was he thought he saw. Had Loki projected some other illusion on us? Or me? Had I left sobbing?
Whatever he did, no one paid us any attention as we left the building. A car alarm disarmed with a squawk, and Loki opened the passenger door to a grey Ford Mustang.
“Get in,” he said.
“Where are we going?”
“To work,” he said.
For about five minutes we rode in silence. As he guided the car south, I stared out the window as the neighborhoods shifted by.
“Is that why you didn’t test me like the others? Because you already knew me through Tully?”
“Who says I didn’t test you?”
I took a breath to argue, but the words caught in my throat. My mouth hung open like a codfish.
Loki chuckled. “I didn’t send colossal beasties after you or invade your mind, but I had a few questions of my own about you.”
“You know about Puck’s test?” I asked, face flaring with shame.
He nodded. When he spoke, his voice carried a quiet sympathy. “I don’t know all of the details, but I know it happened.”
“How?”
“I have my sources.” Loki took his eyes off the road and met mine for a second too long to be comfortable. When his attention was once more on the light traffic, he added, “I put you through a few paces myself. For example, I thought you handled Alfie’s insanity admirably. I risked a lot inviting him to my little soiree, but it was worth it. I learned a lot about you in those few minutes you spent humoring him.”
Pity mingled with fear as I thought of the broken soul at the buffet. “Was it an act?”
“Sadly, no. Alfie is what he is, and there’s little in this world that could heal his mind.”
His words got me to thinking. I played over as much as I could remember of what Tully had told me a few days ago. A picture began to form, and I didn’t like it.
“A major server goes down at Caesars the same night Eris bets my soul in a poker game. A poker game you’d already won.”
“Keep working at it,” he urged.
“When the backup controller kicks in, a gala mysteriously shows up on the schedule that has everyone scrambling, and I just happen to get a job handed to me that sends me to Caesars to help your alter ego fix the broken controller. Hell,” I said in shock, “your fingerprints are all over this thing!”
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“How far back does this go? I mean, are you the reason my car broke down on the way to my senior prom, too?”
His rubbery face wrinkled into a self-satisfied smirk. “Not my work, I’m afraid.”
“You rigged the game, didn’t you?”
“I did nothing of the sort.”
“You blew the domain controller at Caesar’s to cover the sudden addition of your party to the schedule, though.”
Both hands sprang off the wheel, and mischief danced in his eyes. “Guilty,” he sang proudly.
I shook my head, astounded by the complexity of Loki’s gambit. “I still don’t understand why. Why go through all of this for a soul? Why the disguise as Tully? Why all the crazy games?”
“Are you kidding?” Loki asked. “Why do you play any game? Because it’s fun. As to why bother with all of it for a soul, this answer is easy, too. Because it’s yours.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What’s so great about my soul?”
We made a right into a vaguely familiar neighborhood. The playhouses for the rich and famous sprawled on acres of desert. I’d probably fixed someone’s cable or wired a panic room out here at some point.
“I think you said it best yourself, Catherine. ‘It’s when the gods take notice of you that you should start praying.’ Well, my dear, you’ve been noticed.”
“I’m never going to get a straight answer from you, am I?”
The Mustang jerked to a stop, and he threw the gearshift into park. “We’re here.”
We’d parked on the street in front of a two-story house with an iron sunburst pattern on the security door. Even in the daylight I recognized it as Eris’s home. A U-Haul sat in the driveway.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, unable to keep the fear out of my voice.
“Unfinished business.”
“Yours or mine?”
He let out a belly laugh and unbuckled his seat belt. Without answering, Loki got out of the car and motioned for me to follow. I marched slowly behind my new master up the mosaic path. Before the Norseman could knock, the door flew open. Marius, his arms wrapped around two cardboard boxes, shuffled out into the Vegas afternoon. He’d made it two steps before he realized he had company.
Surprise flashed over his weary face for an instant. “Ah,” he said to Loki, his mask sliding back into place. “I thought I smelled syphilis on the wind.” Marius slid the boxes into the back of the truck, dusted off his hands and swaggered to Loki with his hand extended. “Pleasure, as always, to see you,” he sneered.
“Good puppy,” Loki sang as he gripped the satyr’s hand. “Make yourself useful and go find your mistress.”
Marius glared. As he stuffed his hand in the pockets of his jeans I caught a flash of dull-green paper. I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Catherine,” he said. “Not even a day away from Eris, and you’re already looking fresh and lovely as I’ve ever seen you.”
I blushed, at a loss for what to say to him or how to act. “Hey.”
I cringed internally. Eloquence wins again.
Loki took in the truck, nearly filled with boxes and a few pieces of furniture. “Going somewhere, Marius?”
“The Lady tires of the desert air.”
“How sad for her.”
“Marius,” Eris called from within the house. She stopped at her threshold and narrowed her eyes a
t Loki. “Oh, it’s you.”
She joined us in the front yard. Eris still wore the same clothes from last night, her hair pulled into a tight bun at the back of her head. The goddess’s golden eyes glared at me, her lips curling with disdain.
“Not to be rude, Loki, but what the hell do you want?”
“Well, hag, I have two pieces of business today. First, I wanted to thank you for hosting yet another wonderful game. It’s not every day I get to add a potent technomancer to my staff.”
Eris clucked her tongue. “Please, she’s not so talented. You should see the mess she made of the elevator at my office. I am glad to be rid of her. What good do you think she could possibly do for you?”
Loki grinned as he appraised me. “I’m sure Asgard would be able to find some clever use for her. Or maybe I’ll just hold onto her for a while, see how this particular investment matures.”
“Asgard? The All-father has plans for her?”
“Did I say that? My mistake. Anyhow, as I said, I have two things to discuss with you. Now that I’ve thanked you for Ms. Sharp here, it’s time for the less pleasant matter.”
“And that is?” Eris asked, face pinched and sour.
“Get the hell out of my house.”
Marius choked on a laugh and covered it with a few weak coughs. The goddess’s eyes widened, and her nostrils flared with anger. “What did you say to me?”
“Funny thing, Eris,” Loki began. “I have been in the market for a new home for a while now, and this one came up recently as having been foreclosed. Well, I had to scoop it up, didn’t I? Got it for a song! I took possession of it as of midnight. Get out.”
Grinding her teeth, Eris stewed in her rage. “You cannot order me around, Loki.”
“No? Can you pay me the money you lost to me along with the mage? It’s not like you to skip town after a game. If the others had any reason to think you couldn’t make good on your bets it might weaken your status at the table.”
The goddess squinted, malice swirling in her eyes as she pondered her precarious situation. When her jaw clenched and her cheeks pinched with sour revulsion, I knew that my new boss had her over the proverbial barrel.
“Marius,” Eris barked, “we’re leaving.”
“But I’ve left my jacket in the house,” he whined.
“Now!”
Marius scrambled to close up the cargo bay. As he passed us on his way to the cab, he pointed to the house. “I’ll just get it on my way back ’round town, shall I?”
“Wait,” I said. “You’re going?”
What the hell was I doing? Was I about to make some scene out here in the driveway with him, our bosses watching? I shuddered, shut down with nerves.
Marius met my eyes, his smile sad. His mustache twitched, and his voice softened. “You know how she is.”
As the satyr pulled himself up into the driver’s seat, he peered over the door at Loki and me. Eris slammed herself into the passenger seat and fumed. Marius followed suit and started the U-Haul with a thunderous rumble.
“Anything left inside I’ll consider a down payment on what you owe me,” Loki called. His smile was so smug he could give Marius lessons.
The truck rumbled out of the driveway and down the street. When Marius and Eris were out of sight, Loki grabbed me by the arm. “Come on, this is the best part!”
Like a child getting private access to an amusement park, Loki bounded into the house and turned a circle in the empty living room. “What do you think?” he asked. “Pull up the carpet? Paint the walls? What would you do?”
I wasn’t up for playing interior decorator. I had other things on my mind. A few of the coincidences of the past few days began to gel together and form a new mosaic.
“Marius,” I said. “You bought him, didn’t you?”
Loki regarded his feet. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, for starters, you just palmed him some cash.”
“Good eye,” he said appreciatively. “Everyone has a price, Cat, and the satyr is—as you could imagine—quite cheap.”
I decided to bounce my theories off of him. “So, you set up the gala—wearing your Tully suit—so that you and the rest of the gang would have a chance to see me out and about. You met Marius and me at the door and worked some spell over the invitation. Were you passing Marius a message?”
He smirked. “She’s good!”
“And last night. You were the one who was supposed to meet us at Caesars, weren’t you?”
“At least I didn’t destroy the place and render everyone there null and void.”
I ignored him and kept going. “And the phone call when Marius and I landed on Fremont. That was you, not Eris. That’s when you told him to get the chips away from me. So you distracted me by being Tully in the crowd.”
Loki’s expression grew serious as he leaned against a bare wall. He sighed. “I had to make sure Eris didn’t try to take back her bet.”
“That’s when he told you about Puck’s illusion.”
“Yes.”
“So Marius was working angles for you the whole time. And now you’re using me to piss off Eris.”
Loki nodded.
“I can respect that,” I said. “But, if you and I are going to be working together there are a few things we should get straight right from the start.”
Loki folded his arms and regarded me as if I were a precocious child. If he patted me on the head I would slug him. I drew in a deep breath. “I have free will. This means that if Coyote wants to borrow me for the weekend, or if you want to send me off on some errand to start a war, I can say no. You have my soul, but I have control of my actions and my body. Is that clear?”
“Crystal.”
“Good. Also, from here on out I deal with you. Not Tully or some illusion. You want to talk to me? You want to know something about me, Loki? Fine. But I get to know when it’s you. If Marius told you what Puck did to me, then you know that I do not respond well to mindfucks.”
Loki nodded. “I can’t promise that circumstances will not force me to use illusion and disguise. Sometimes it is necessary for me to be someone else. Even someone as insignificant and mundane as David Tullemore. However, if I cannot appear to you as myself, I will make sure that you know you are dealing with me. And your mind and body shall remain your own while you are under my care.”
“Care?” I scoffed.
“As long as we’re setting some ground rules for our relationship, Catherine, allow me to be frank. I am not Eris. Yes, I am using you. You are an investment with lucrative possibilities. What you are not, however, is a slave. I need your mind intact and your faculties sharp. It is not in my best interest to play tricks with your mind to find a sadistic foothold.”
“If I’m not a slave, what am I?”
He sighed, weary. “What I offer is a symbiotic partnership. I give you an assignment, you carry out the work and receive payment. Like a typical day job there are other benefits to being on my payroll. First and foremost is protection. Unlike Eris, I am not some withering hack trying to claw my way back into power. My name still has meaning, and others will think twice before they cross one of my people.”
Stunned, I blinked and soaked it in. I had a god as an ally.
“What if I want my soul back?” I asked. “What if I want to end our arrangement?”
Loki’s hard face grew dark. “Breaking our bond is not in your best interest. You’ve attracted a lot of attention. Believe me, Catherine, I may not be the devil you know, but I am the lesser of the evils who would have you.”
A chill skittered over my spine.
“Besides,” he added. “Your soul is not mine to give.”
“What are you talking about? You won it last night.”
“I’m merely a steward,” he said, spreading his hands. Before I could ask any more questions, Loki clapped loudly and bounced away from the wall. “Now! About the house. What do you think?”
I looked around the empty, bone-white space.
With a shrug I gave a non-committal “eh.”
“It’s yours,” he said. “If you’ll have it.”
I whirled around to face him. I expected to see some sadistic, lupine grin like the one worn by Eris. Instead he gave a warm, almost benevolent smile.
“Why?” I asked.
“How much have you given up, Cat, to be Eris’s minion? How much did you get in return? I like to make sure my people are happy.”
I thought about it. You could fit two of my apartment into this house and have room left over to park a few cars. A pool and a panic room added to the value, of course. The real selling point, though, would be that it was a kick in the face to Eris. I looked around at the white walls and white carpets. The little breakfast nook, though empty of the table and chairs, would always hold the memory of the poker game where my soul was gambled away.
“No,” I said. “I will stay where I am, thank you.”
Loki’s forehead wrinkled as his brows climbed up. “Really?”
“Really. It’s too big and cold. Not my thing. Besides, my landlady would be lost without me.”
The god stood staring at me, mouth hitching up in amusement. “You are full of surprises, aren’t you, Catherine Sharp?”
I shrugged. “I am what I am.”
“All right, then. I suppose I’ll find something to do with this place.”
Loki led the way out to the driveway. When we were back in his Mustang and on our way across town, he said, “I’m sure you understand that I can’t have you working such erratic hours for the company. I can’t have you making excuses to managers if I need you to go on an assignment for me.”
“Are you firing me?”
“No,” he said, “I still want you working around the city with some of our bigger clients. You’ll be on the payroll as an executive consultant. Congratulations, you’ve been promoted.”
“Will I still be working with Tully?” I asked.
“Occasionally, yes.”
While he laid out the details of my new job, I listened and watched Las Vegas fly past the car windows. It looked as it always had, but in just a few days the world had changed in so many ways. For the first time in years I didn’t know what tomorrow would hold.
“What’s next?” I murmured to no one in particular.