We sat at a small outdoor café table, beside a quiet city street.Large pots of flowers along the buildings and cobbled walkways sent heady fragrance into the soft breeze.Birds sang in lush green trees, and the low murmur of people around us filled the space.
The buildings, the language, the coffee set in front of us made me think we might be in France.
Well, not literally.Mithra was a god of contracts, of bindings.But that didn’t mean he couldn’t lie and cast an illusion if he wanted to.
I had to believe we were still in the truck, still on Route 66.I had to believe this god couldn’t just snap his fingers and alter our reality so easily.
But he was a god.And gods could do anything.
“Brogan and Lula Gauge.”He lifted his cup in a toast.“It has been some time since we last spoke.”
“Since you tried to kill us,” Lula snarled.
“That too.”His smile was small and mean.
“The answer is no,” I said.
“You don’t even know what I am here to offer.”
“The answer is still no.”
“I don’t like you,” Abbi said.
Mitha’s expression slipped from mostly human, to something cruel and bestial.
“You are insignificant to me.”He snapped his fingers and Abbi turned into a small brown rabbit with one white foot.
She stood on her back feet and hopped, kicking the air.
Mithra snapped his fingers again.
Abbi froze as if he had just pressed a pause button.
“Let her go,” I said.
“When I choose.”He sipped his drink and inclined his head.“If I choose.”
Have I mentioned how much I hated this guy?
Lorde, standing on the cobbles next to Lula, pressed her ears back and growled.
Mithra raised his hand, fingers ready to snap.
“Stop!”Lula grabbed Lorde’s collar, and Lorde immediately sat.“We’re listening,” she said.“Talk.”
Mithra’s smug expression made me want to pop him in the nose just to see if he’d bleed.
He relaxed his hand and settled his cup onto the saucer.The liquid in it was not coffee.It was nebula fire that smelled of hot stone, burned copper, and ash.
“You may know I have been watching you.”
“No,” she said.“We didn’t know.”
“We don’t care,” I said.
“You should.”He waved at our cups encouraging us to drink.
The liquid smelled strongly of coffee, rich and real.I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole.
