A chill rolled over my skin. That quote was almost exactly what the anonymous note had said. “What?”
“Hours before Thanatos shows up,” Aaron repeated slowly, as if I needed time to hear each word, “Heimdall dies. Anyone else find that suspicious?”
Crow shot his hand up.
Great. The god of war and the trickster god thought something fishy was going on. Or, more likely, the god of war and the trickster god were trying to stir up trouble.
“I don’t see how they’re connected,” I said.
“Thanatos is death,” Aaron said.
“Exactly!” Crow said.
“Don’t humor them, Delaney,” Zeus said. “Children, find another pot to stir.”
“He’s death,” I said to Aaron, “and you’re war. No one’s blaming you for the Kressler/Wallery garbage can feud.”
He rolled his eyes. “Amateurs! If I were running that feud, one of them would be dead by trash compactor by now.”
He might look like a mild-mannered gardener, but Aaron had always been a cheerleader for blood and mayhem.
“I don’t see why we should blame Thanatos for Heimdall’s death,” I said. “Just because he is Death doesn’t mean people randomly die around him.”
Crow chuckled and even Odin smiled. Okay, it was a dumb thing to say, but it wasn’t wrong.
Odin leaned forward, resting two beefy arms on the table. He had several scars and nicks on his arms and the backs of his hands. Being a chainsaw artist hadn’t come naturally to him, but he was too pigheaded to give up his preferred mortal occupation.
Just like most of the gods.
“Don’t you find the timing convenient?” he said. “That death was no accident. Someone was behind it. Likely a trickster.” He leaned back as if that were that, and the case was closed.
Crow grinned at Odin. “Screw you, old man. I didn’t kill Heimdall.”
“You think you’re the only trickster?” Odin asked, unperturbed.
He was right. Between the creatures, deities, and heck, even the mortals in town, we had plenty of people who were jokers.
“Do any of you know who wanted him dead?” I asked. “Who he might have been fighting with?” I glanced at Herri expectantly.
This is a safe place. You’re with people who care about you, Herri. Tell us you killed him.
Huh. Maybe it did feel like an intervention.
She pulled her hair back from her temples with her thumbs and let it fall. “He and I argued. But I have never disliked Heimdall. As a mortal, he was companionable. Even-tempered. Despite screwing me out of a few choice catches, he was fair to me.”
“As a mortal, you got along with him,” I said. “What about as a god?”
“We leave that outside this town, outside these lives,” she said.
“Do you?” I asked.
“Yes,” Zeus said in his cultured accent. “We all do.”
Herri rolled her eyes at him, and Aaron adjusted his glasses and snorted.
“You have an opinion, Ares?” Zeus asked.
“I’ll believe gods leave petty squabbles behind the day you and Odin kiss and make up.”
