He raised his eyebrows.
“Getting into a fight with Odin.”
“Well, not where you can see it anyway,” he said with a grin.
I shook my head and took us both back to town.
Chapter Three
I strode into the station.Death was waiting for me.
“Reed Daughter, you are late,” Than, the god of death, intoned.
He was looking particularly dapper today, from the brown trilby to the brightly flowered Hawaiian shirt, which was covered in smaller brightly flowered Hawaiian shirts, to the crisp black slacks.
He stood partially behind the counter that separated the waiting area from our desks. I couldn’t see his shoes, but I would win money if I bet they were polished within an inch of their lives.
“Late for what?” I asked. “And since when are you in charge of my schedule?”
His eyebrows lifted slightly as he gave me a look that indicated this was not the subject on the table.
“I do not follow your schedule,” he said. “However, there are three people who have indicated you were to meet them here. The half of an hour ago.”
I mouthed: “the half of an hour” and glanced past him to my desk.
Yep. Three people waiting for me. Three people I very much did not have on my calendar.
“Bertie,” I said, pushing past the front counter and surly god to face the Valkyrie who looked annoyed at my cheerful tone. “I don’t recall us having a meeting today.”
At first glance, Bertie seemed like a petite elderly woman with short silver hair and an office chic taste in fashion. Today she wore a plum and gold jacket and slacks, the silk blouse a vivid pink that really pulled the whole suit together. But her power-suit and pearls exterior hid the ferocious heart of an ancient creature born for the battlefield.
“We did have a meeting,” she informed me. “I called an hour ago. Than explained you did not have anything on your schedule this morning. I’ve been waiting.”
I threw a dirty look at Than. He slowly lifted his mug of tea, and took a sip, watching me the entire time.
Unrepentant, that god.
“I didn’t know he’d promised I’d be here, or I would have cut lunch short. Hi, Tish.”
Tish lifted their fingers in a wiggly little wave. They were a ghoul and one of the newest members of Ordinary.
Bathin, the demon who was dating my sister, Myra, had granted Tish a bodily form of their own so they didn’t have to keep eating things or people and turning into them. They were a good looking, dark-haired, copper-skinned person who was wearing a white T-shirt, leather belt and designer blue jeans.
I’d never met a ghoul before Tish, but they seemed to be settling into our town and their job as Bertie’s assistant surprisingly quickly.
I’d made sure Bertie understood Tish had basically been forced by the demon Goap, who was Bathin’s younger brother, to invade the god realms and steal god weapons, strangely delivering some of them here to our town. Goap had made a couple plays to try and get Bathin to fight their father, the King of the Underworld, for the throne, but Bathin said he didn’t want the throne.
He wanted to stay here in Ordinary, dating my sister and volunteering at the animal shelter.
Bertie had brushed off my concern of demon influence over Tish, and had spent the last couple months training Tish to help in the various festivals Bertie was constantly coordinating and throwing, teaching them how to be organized and professional.
If Tish ever got tired of being Bertie’s right hand person, they’d have no problem finding a job in any business of their choice.
The other person sitting on the edge of my desk was a man I didn’t recognize. “And you are?” I asked, offering my hand.
He was blond, fit, and had that everything-always-goes-my way attitude. Handsome enough he could land a commercial strolling a tropical beach with a lime balanced on top of his beer bottle. His smile, when he switched it on, was bad-boy rock star in a boy-next-door package.
Dangerous.
