“Yes, but she's obviously a little insane, and she's been helping as much as she's been hurting. We can't treat her likeevery other villain. She's different. And Ty loves her.”
“You're a moron!” Hermes shouted. “And you're all crazy if you agree with her.” He looked around.
It was a small group, but they all condensed around me. All but Hermes's kids. They drew closer to their father. Hold on. All of them except for Pan. He stood somewhere in the middle, looking lost.
“Ugh! I don't need your help anymore anyway,” Hermes said. “I know who the trickster is now. I'll go after her myself!” He stormed off, his children trailing after him like ducklings.
Pan looked at me.
“Go, Pan,” Odin said. “He's your father. We understand and we love you. This won't change our friendship.”
“Thank you.” He paused. “And I'm sorry, Ty. If we find her first, I promise I'll try to keep her alive.”
Ty's face twitched, but he nodded.
Pan hurried off while the rest of us watched. Only after he was out of earshot did I speak.
“Torrent?” was all I said.
“As I said, V. There are a lot of Coyote myths.”
I was about to groan when he went on. “But there's only one associated with an angry beaver. The Coyote who killed Wishpoosh.”
“Do we know where he is?”
“Not yet. But I can find him.”
“Why don't we just ask the beaver?” Trevor said.
We turned to see him standing at the top of the stairs, back to himself.
“So, you didn't catch her?” Kirill asked.
“No.” He came over to us. “She traced as soon as she had enough distance between us. And she didn't leave a scent trail.”
“I should have noticed that Modjadji didn't have a scent,” I said.
“No.” Ty stood up. “Ishould have noticed. But she was always wearing perfume.”
“Hold on. She wore perfume?” I asked.
“Not tonight,” Trevor said. “Or if she did, it didn't transfer to her coyote form.”
“Damn it,” I grumbled.
Trevor went to his brother. “Are you all right?”
Ty nodded. “I'm joining the hunt.”
“I figured.” Trevor looked at the rest of us. “Shall we go back to the beaver?”
“He'll attack us as soon as we step foot in his territory,” Torrent said.
“We can plan for that,” I said. “And maybe we can wave a white flag or something.”
“I'll handle it,” Odin said. “Let's go.”
No one asked Odin what he was going to do. If he said he'd handle it, he would handle it.
