Her verdict seemed to be the final word everyone was waiting for, and some of the tension eased out of the room.

Grace tapped the heel of his crosier on the floor to get our attention. “So let me get this straight.” He pointed around the room in turn. “Lucifer, Mayari, Loki, Durga, Tezcatlipoca, and…?”

“Apollo.”

“Is that so? I’ve heard of you. A fine, upstanding fellow by all accounts.” He smiled at the sun god. Apollo did not smile back.

Meanwhile, Lucy made his way past the miniature altar up towards the stage. He hopped up onto it, where he sat with his legs dangling off the edge, and clapped his hands together. “Well, now,” he said. “This calls for a pact. As it happens, we’re already assembled in a place of power, and Matteo has done most of the work in setting up the accoutrements. All we need is an agreement -” he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, “- and a fresh sacrifice.”

So he was giving up the act, then. The seers were taking it in stride, of course, Mayari's eyes had lit up, and while Durga's expression registered some confusion, it seemed she was deciding not to rock the boat.

Tez held out a hand and summoned some kind of elaborate stone knife out of thin air which looked like it should have been on display in a museum. “Now you’re speaking my language,” he said, eyes gleaming.

“Good,” said Lucy. “You’re in charge of the rites.”

“Human sacrifices make for the strongest spells.” Glancing across at Grace, Tez twirled the knife between his fingers in a deft series of movements. The pope paled a little, reached into the folds of his robe with his free hand and didn’t bring it back out again. Curious, I gave myself temporary infrared vision and found him clutching a small rectangular item, probably another walkie-talkie or other panic switch. Depending on who it was a line to, it had the potential to be a problem.

“Tez.” Growing a spare heart, I set it up with just enough adjustments to keep it pumping on its own for an hour or so, then pushed it out into my waiting hands. “Catch.”

Mayari made a revolted sound beside me as the seer caught the spasming organ on its downward trajectory. “Loki, that’s disgusting.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “but it’s a disgusting loophole. No one needs to die. It’s practically vegan.”

“Please tell me we don’t have to eat it.”

“No, we stab it,” said Tez. “The important part is that something dies.” He looked disappointed.

“But Loki will still be alive,” Mayari pointed out.

“Loophole,” I reminded her.

“I’m trying not to think about all the ethical, metaphysical and practical questions this raises,” she said. I could see her mind racing ahead on some of them anyway.

If she had questions, I had answers. There was very little I couldn’t do when it came to shapeshifting. The tricky part was usually in figuring out where the line was between ‘could’ and ‘should’. Not that I’d ever admitted it to anyone, but there were aspects of my own power which gave me sufficient pause that I’d never properly tested them, even when the situation was dire. Before Providence had gotten its hands on me, I hadn’t had the luxury of knowing someone like Shitface would step in to prevent a disaster. There was only so far I was willing to experiment – and although it was fairly far, I had my limits.

And that was something to bear in mind. If we did succeed at bringing down the company and loosed thousands of gods on the population who had forgotten how to self-regulate, there could be some interesting times ahead. My tenure at Providence had been short compared to everyone else’s – if Lucy had been its first less-than-willing recruit, I’d been the last, watching it fall over itself trying to track me down. It meant people had had plenty of time to become complacent.

I looked over at the pew Durga was still sitting on and found her watching us from the sidelines. Lucy and Apollo were already discussing something that sounded like boring legal clauses while Grace peered over their shoulders and asked intrusive questions every few seconds, which left her to navigate the situation alone. A situation where she’d felt the need to betray her boss’ confidence to a group of people she knew much less well.

I hadn’t helped, either. Even though it had only been hours since we’d talked, it occurred to me she had been the only person in the meeting who hadn’t known I had my powers back. Even Grace had been more clued in due to not knowing any better. Being the outsider wasn’t a nice position to be in.

“I need to fill you in on what happened with the heist,” I told her, walking over. “It was only last night after we spoke. It was supposed to be just Tez and I.”

“I get it, Loki,” she stated, with a small smile. “I’m not sour.”

“Good,” I said. “Because we have a lot to cover in relation to our previous conversation.”

“Loki,” she said again, more insistent this time. “I know what you’re trying to do. And… thanks.” Changing the subject, she nodded in the direction of the pope. “How did you manage to convince him to get in on it?”

“Talk to him and you’ll find out. He seems reasonable. Horrendously corrupt, but in a good way.”

“Hrm. You stick to your judgements and I’ll stick to mine.”

Up on the platform, Lucy cleared his throat and waited until he had everyone’s attention. “We have a contract,” he said, raising his phone. “For obvious reasons, I won’t be sending you all your own personal copy. The original will be going under some very secure encryption after this. Now’s the time to read it or live with the consequences.”

“And since none of you are going to read it,” Apollo continued, “I’ll summarise.”

Seeing them work together was surreal. The last time I’d seen them exchange more than a few words, it had ended with Lucy unplugging his computer and shoving it into the kitchen dishwasher, where the entire floor had been forced to learn over the next three hours what kind of noises a machine made when it was in excruciating pain.

“Well, I’ll just be over here in the special corner, then,” said Grace, making his way back to the throne. “Please continue.”

“Signing the pact commits you to secrecy,” said Apollo. “You will not be able to talk about or allude to our goals here to anyone who isn’t already aware. Trying will trigger some interesting results. I don’t suggest you try.”

That sounded like a challenge to me. Lucy’s pacts were infamous. There had been a time when Legal would solicit him to proofread their contract wording, and he had managed to work in a staggering number of critical loopholes without anyone realising until later when his handiwork came back to bite them. Even then, it took a whole team several centuries to trace all the mishaps back to him, by which point the damage had been done.

“If information does get out as a result of your actions, you will have your memories wiped of all relevant knowledge and the rest of us will be alerted. If the whole group is compromised, it happens to everyone.”

Lucy held up a hand. “There’s also a kill switch,” he clarified. “If someone’s trying to force information out of you, you can trigger the wipe so the larger group isn’t put at risk.”

“What about the risk of accidental activation?” Mayari asked.

“It won’t be available until you think you need it,” he answered. “When it is, you’ll know.”

A memory wipe wouldn’t last forever, but it would buy valuable time.

“Moving on from the maudlin, we’ll also have a degree of protection,” said Apollo. “Anyone trying to trace or scry us out will find their efforts hampered. If one of us slips up in front of a witness, they will find themselves distracted.” He paused. “There is a catch. This protection is fueled by our own powers. The closer we are to discovery, the weaker they will become.”

“On the bright side,” said Tez, as the extra heart continued to pulse away in his palm, “it sounds like a handy danger thermometer. ”

“It also puts us off-guard at critical junctures,” Mayari noted. She grimaced. “If something goes wrong, that’s exactly the wrong time for our powers to fail. This execution puts us all at great risk.”

“I don’t like it either,” said Apollo, “but the alternative is having no protection at all, and that isn’t a viable option.”

I eyed the pope, who was paying close attention to the conversation. He was the weak link here. Mortality didn’t come into it so much as the fact he had the tyrant’s regular attention, even more so than Shitface, who was at least one step removed from the chief executive. All it would take would be one ill-timed checkup to bring the whole endeavour crashing down, and it wouldn’t surprise me if there were permanent provisions in place to ensure Yahweh’s prime representative wasn’t interfered with. Interference like being turned into a demon lord, for example. If that was the case, having Grace in on the conspiracy would be a permanent drain on everyone, especially if he did become a demon.

But it meant he could become one without giving the game away. Was I willing to put everyone at risk for my personal gratification? Stupid question. Of course I was.

“It seems straightforward enough to me,” I said. “Don’t be stupid enough to draw the wrong kind of attention and we’ll be fine.”

There was one detail bugging me, though. The way Apollo had worded it – anyone who isn’t already aware – failed to consider the fact there was at least one other person who knew about it. Wording was important with these sorts of things. The unseen chessmaster, or multiples thereof, who had pushed us into this in the first place. That left us wide open to any continued machinations, not to mention a technicality through which they could spread their knowledge, and you could bet that if they could exploit this vulnerability, they would. On the other hand… if I started trying to drop hints to every person I talked to, perhaps I’d run into someone who knew more than they ought to. And if this person was as clever as I suspected they were, it wasn’t necessarily going to be an obvious candidate. I could always use more tricks up my sleeve.

I wasn’t sure if Lucy had figured this particular scenario out yet. My gut was telling me to hoard the information away to myself, especially with seers present, but last time I’d kept a secret from him it had ended up with Rap Boy becoming a demon, so perhaps he had a point about open communication.

So we find ourselves at a dilemma, I said to Lucy while the others debated, ensuring I included him in that statement. Assuming he hadn’t thought of the same scenario I had would be a mistake. Do we account for our erstwhile eighth member or not?

He stared at me blankly. Are we talking about Tru or your master manipulator?

The latter.

He considered it for a moment. I see what you mean. Reading into it at a meta level, neither Tezcatlipoca or Apollo have mentioned anything, which means we probably aren’t going to enlighten them.

That didn’t mean it was the right call. For a non-seer, trying to interpret prophecy was the way of madness. If either Mayari or Apollo got wind of the fact there was a third party involved, I was pretty sure they’d put a plug in the vulnerability – Apollo because he was a killjoy and Mayari because she was, well, smart. It’s a big risk, I admitted. But it’s your pact.

I felt a small mental poke from Durga, and turned to find her glancing between Lucy and I with curious eyes. The rest of them might be oblivious, but not me, she said. You two are up to no good.

That’s pretty standard, asserted Lucy. Not much happens on Floor L; we have to get creative.

I shot her an appraising look. Why, you want in?

Is this a trick question?

That was a yes, then. Look, at this point you can’t get into any more trouble than you already will, I said. May as well go all in. Besides, Durga would be an asset. Unlike the others, she was two-thirds of the way to figuring out the connection anyway; it wasn’t going to be long before she made it the rest of the way. When that happened, I wanted her onside.

A crackle sounded from the folds of the pope’s robes, and Raul the guard’s voice spoke over the radio in rapid Italian. The whole room fell silent to listen in. “Holy Father, this is Assignment Two. Is everything okay in there?”

With an annoyed grumble, Grace pulled out the most expensive-looking walkie talkie I’d ever seen. Plated in pure gold and studded with jewels the size of grapes, it resembled an ostentatious amulet and looked like it could have paid off the national debt of several small countries. He pressed one of the rubies, and it sank inwards a little. “Raul,” he intonated, “what did I tell you about contacting me on the secret line?”

“That it was only to be used for emergencies, Holy Father.”

“What does this sound like to you, Raul?”

There was a long pause on the other end. “In fairness, Holy Father, you are trapped in a room with the devil and our protocols aren’t equipped to cover this situation.”

“Ours are,” crackled a distant geriatric voice in the background. “Should’ve listened.”

“Give me the intercom,” said Lucy, wiggling his fingers. Grace passed it over into his waiting hand.

“Vince,” he said, pressing the ruby, “this is Lucifer. Not that I don’t appreciate the work your crew puts in, but you’re a theatrical outfit, not a spy ring. Don’t start getting ideas.”

The distant voice became less distant. “Lord Lucifer,” it said, in a reverent tone. “You know who I am!”

“Of course I do,” said Lucy. “You’re the ones who spam my task list with assassination requests every second Sunday and occasionally at themed birthday parties. It’s annoying.”

Grace cleared his throat and frowned. “Birthday parties, eh? Nobody mentioned that to me.”

“Look,” said Vince, sounding a little uncomfortable. “It doesn’t change anything. We’re professionals. Nobody knows more about occultism than we do. And sometimes, when money is a little tight, we have to take on side jobs to finance the big projects. Ritual materials are expensive, and it isn’t always easy to find a goat at short notice.”

“About that,” said Lucy. “I might have some ongoing work for you coming up. Interested?”

The pause on the other end was so long I began to wonder if the contractor had died, possibly of old age. “Yes?” he squeaked. “I mean -” his voice lowered back into a regular pitch, “- some of the lads have concerns about the kinds of contractual obligations they might be subject to, but we’re confident we can reach a mutually satisfactory arrangement.”

“We don’t have to use a contract. In fact, I was thinking of something more discreet.”

“Oh,” said Vince. “We can do hush-hush. It’s just a contract would be a nice souvenir, you know? Something to pass onto the grandkids.”

I liked this guy already. “How about a cursed heirloom?” I suggested, leaning in towards the device. “Obligation-free and guaranteed to be difficult to get rid of.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Apollo said. He pointed at the walkie-talkie and it toppled out of Lucy’s hand with a loud crack, shot through with an invisible bolt.

The pope looked at the smoking wreck on the floor, not blinking an eyelid. “That’s fifty million euros you’ve just destroyed there,” he chided Shitface. “I hope you’re happy.”