“Oh, shit,” his girlfriend Artemis hissed. “Really? I thought he was done screwing with us?”
“I think he may be done screwing with Vervain, but the other gods are now fair game,” Odin said. “He probably doesn't know about Hermes's connection to Vervain.”
“Because we have no connection,” Hermes said. “We know each other through Pan. That is all.”
“And you slung some mud at me through your newspaper,” I added.
“I have to report current events!”
“Not as you did. Gods started hunting me because they thought I didn't have any magic!”
“But I also helped you look for your daughter!”
“I know! That's why I'm here!”
“Can you two please stop shouting?” Blue, AKA Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec God of War, drawled. “You're hurting my wife's ears.
“Myears, eh?” Eztli, Goddess of the Blood Moon, asked and smirked.
Blue winked a jade green eye at her.
They were a striking couple but so were the other couples sitting at the Mad Hatter's table. Gods were generally attractive. Generally. There were exceptions of course. Still, I had history with Blue—intimate, awkward, cruel history, some of which he didn't remember because we'd experienced it in an altered timeline when the God of Time was screwing with me.
A memory flashed through my mind—me bending over a coffee table in front of Blue to spread—nope! Can't go there. All I'm going to say is, thank goodness Blue didn't remember. I'd never be able to meet his stare again.
“Vervain, are you all right? You're looking a little flushed,” Thor said.
Everyone looked at me.
I cleared my throat and said, “Arguing always gets the blood pumping. Look, Hermes, I want to help you. Don't make me change my mind. And you sent for me, buddy.”
Hermes grimaced. “I sent for your team.” He waved limply at all of us, then slumped back in his chair. “But you are correct. I need your help, and I'm being a dick. I'm sorry.”
Shock made me nicer. “It's all right. I get it. Let's move on. If this is the work of the trickster, he may have an honorable reason for taking your staff.”
Hermes straightened instantly. “Honorable? How is stealing honorable?”
“Ah, ethics.” I shook my head. “I was never good at that.” I pointed at him when he started to open his mouth. “Do not insult me right when we're starting to get along.” When Hermessnapped his mouth shut, I went on. “My point is that it can get muddy. He's very clearly insane, but also . . . I don't know. I think he may be like one of those mad saints. All that trouble he put us through took us to a good place. It was one of those good-luck-bad-luck situations.”
“What is a good-luck-bad-luck situation?” Hermes asked.
“You know, when it looks bad at first, but then ends up being good,” Pan said. “Or the opposite.”
“I don't see how someone taking my snakes is going to benefit me.”
“Caduceus,” Odin supplied gently. Then he took a deep breath.
Everyone waited. When Odin had that pensive look, he was usually preparing to lay some wisdom on us. And he didn't need a smart stick to do it.
“We know the trickster has the Tablets of Jehovah, Katila's Pasha, the power of the Yamadutas of Naraka, and control of Naraka itself,” Odin said. “He also has the Fey Magic Condenser that can unite magic and his innate god magic, which we assume includes Confusion since he has used it on us.”
“And?” Brahma, the Hindu God of Knowledge, drawled as he flicked an imaginary piece of lint off his suit sleeve.
“And so we need to ask ourselves what the Caduceus brings to that mix. Why would the trickster want it? For what purpose?”
“Why wouldn't he want Speed and Wisdom?” Morpheus, the Greek God of Dreams, asked.
“Yes, those are good magics to have,” Teharon, the mohawk-less Mohawk God of Healing, said. “But Odin is asking what it adds to the power the trickster already has.”
