“Shit,” I said, counting the threads of the pact and finding only five, with myself being the sixth. Durga’s thread had dropped out at some point and I hadn’t even noticed. No wonder everyone’s powers were struggling – the pact was getting hammered by Grace’s ill-fated encounter with the tyrant and Lucy’s probable interrogation, all while there was less of a total pool of divine energy to draw on.

“I warned you,” said Mayari. She tapped the side of her nose. “The last thing you want in a moment of weakness is more weakness. But did anyone listen to me? No.”

I winced. “Point taken.”

“To be fair,” she continued, “I don’t think any of us foresaw this. Even those of us whose job it is to foresee things,” she added, shooting a chastising glance at Tez.

“This is workplace bullying,” he responded, taking a seat at the table. “In case you haven’t noticed, I can’t predict much of anything right now. And I’d like to see you do any better.”

“Are you done?” asked the woman-who-was-probably-Parvati in Sanskrit, sounding unimpressed. “Can I go now?”

“Wait,” I returned in the same language, then raised my voice at the squabbling pair. “Knock it off. Let me talk to her.”

Parvati was supposed to be, if not exactly dead, then extinguished. Hindu gods had once had a habit of manifesting in the form of various avatars, which was a nice way of saying the entire pantheon had a full-blown case of dissociative identity disorder. Not being known for his cultural tolerance - and probably worried about his ability to control a substantial cohort with regular memory blackouts - when the tyrant and his cronies had come knocking on India’s door, he had offered them a choice: assimilate or die. Assimilation meaning not only into the clutches of Providence, but also into a single stable version of each major deity.

To no one’s surprise, demanding that people give up their inherent individuality had gone down like a lead balloon, and had sparked outright war. It had been an interesting time to live through as a free agent. Providence’s attention being on the ongoing conflict had been a personal boon, taking some of the pressure off and making it easier to evade capture in a world where unaffiliated gods were being tracked down and absorbed one by one. By the time the India conflict escalated, there weren’t many of us left. That state of affairs couldn’t last for long, though. Even with the Hindu pantheon at full power, they were still outnumbered and outmaneuvered by the likes of Shitface and some of the most unscrupulous souls this side of existence. The reaction was too little, too late.

Remembering the breaking news of the unconditional surrender sent echoes of those cold shivers down my spine even now. The fall of India had been the beginning of the end; the last major opposition eliminated, allowing Providence to march on unchecked.

And hundreds of gods had met their end; not by death, but from being consolidated; multiple personalities sharing a soul being smooshed into single entities. Another Enki special. I didn’t know if that had made things lonelier for them or the opposite, but by all accounts it had caused everyone involved a fair amount of psychological trauma.

Now that I thought about it, Durga did always seem to have it together much more than her old-time compatriots.

I turned back to the newcomer. “You’re Parvati?”

She nodded her assent, but the confirmation raised more questions than it answered. Parvati and Durga were different personalities within the same soul, unable to coexist as separate entities. Or they had been, before the surrender. It shouldn’t have been possible for either one to switch in or out anymore. They shouldn’t even have existed in their old forms anymore.

Except, clearly, they did. A little piece of what I thought I knew about the world crumbled away.

“How aren’t you dead?” I asked, getting straight to the point.

Her eyes narrowed a moment before she launched into a seething tirade far too fast and complicated for me to follow. Holding my hands up, I took a step backward and motioned at her to slow down.

“I can’t understand you,” I qualified. “Speak slowly and simply.”

She stopped, paused, and then seemed to take a different tactic. “Where are we?” she asked instead, gesturing around us. The bracelets on her arm clinked together in a gentle chorus of metallic chimes as she moved. “Is this a -” I couldn’t understand the word she said next, but I didn’t need to.

“This is Providence,” I answered, betting that would ring a bell. It did. “I think you were… asleep… for five or six hundred years. But you and I are friends,” I added quickly, hoping I’d be able to make it a reality. If I couldn’t, we were going to have more trouble on our hands. “We -" I gestured around the room, "- don't like Providence.” I hadn't been sure the pact would allow me to say that much, but it seemed to be fine. It was common knowledge, at least in my case.

She considered my words, though looked unconvinced. “Is it still -” I didn’t catch the word, and she cycled through a couple more until finding one I understood, “- strong?” The impression I saw in my head was closer to power or dominance. She must have been wondering why I wasn’t using my own telepathic ability to help things along, and I didn’t have the vocabulary to explain it. Even if my powers had been functioning well enough for it to be helpful, the wider business still numbered me among the neutered and I had no idea what Parvati might do with a secret like that.

“Very,” I replied. “You’re not safe here.”

“Yes. That’s why I want to leave.” To prove the point, she placed her palms on the table and pushed her seat back, lifting it up slightly as if it didn't have wheels and struggling a little with the action. There were going to be plenty more of those moments ahead for her in the near future.

Tez moved his own chair to obstruct the exit in response. As an enforcement measure, a moratorium on quick-travel had been put in place within the confines of the office, which I assumed was the only reason Parvati hadn’t just abandoned the place already.

“What’s she saying?” the soothsayer asked. “This doesn’t seem to be going well. If she decides to fight us, we’re at a severe disadvantage.”

“I’m doing my best, alright? This isn’t as easy as it looks. Sit down,” I suggested to the wayward goddess after a pause, switching back to Sanskrit, and chose my next words carefully. “Durga works for Providence. You’re here. She isn’t. That’s a problem.” Perhaps Apollo might be able to cover it up for a while, but that wouldn’t last forever. Mayari had also claimed he’d gone missing, just to add to the pot of concerns. At least his thread still made up part of the pact.

“I’m not going back,” Parvati declared, her words underscored with a sharp vehemence. “Never again.”

This was interesting. “Can you explain?”

She uttered something I didn't understand, then made a disappointed noise and followed it up with something simpler. "I don't know you. Who are you?”

“Loki. Norse pantheon.” I pointed to the others in turn. “Tezcatlipoca, Aztecs. Mayari of the Tagalog.”

“Hmm,” she said. “You’re trouble.”

“Thank you. I know.”

The look she shot me made it clear it wasn’t a compliment, and I sighed a little. I was missing Durga already. “Listen,” I said, struggling to find the words I needed. “You hate Providence, right? I can help.”

She looked unhappy about it. “Not here. Let me go.”

“You were asleep for a long time,” I reminded her. “The world is very different now. You need a, uh… you need help.”

“Then help me. But do it outside!” she snapped, losing some of her composure and following it up with a string of words I didn’t catch.

“A little translation would be nice,” Tez prompted me again with a note of warning, cracking his knuckles one by one. “Do we know why she’s here yet?”

Mayari looked up from her phone, which had made its way back into her hands again. “It’s a result of the pact weakening Durga,” she alleged, as if it was obvious.

“What, a little suppression and her soul just falls apart?” I wrinkled my nose. “She’s made of sterner stuff than that. Or was, I suppose.”

“Maybe,” said Mayari. “We don’t have enough information. But she said as much herself, right before she changed. Told us she couldn’t hold it back anymore.”

“’It’ being?”

“The original edict, perhaps?”

I opened my mouth to argue and then closed it again. I wasn’t exactly best buddies with Durga, but I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever seen her without her powers. I’d never seen her do anything but take a mountain of crap in good grace, not to mention surviving an extended stint under Shitface, carrying out orders to the letter if not always the spirit. As far as the business would be concerned, she was no doubt a model employee. It hadn’t occurred to me to wonder why.

I’d never seen anyone resist one of Enki’s edicts before, let alone for so long, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible.

We needed to talk. Turning back to Parvati, I extended her an offer. “We’ll look for a safe place if you promise not to run. Okay?” Not for the first time, I wished I had Lucy’s ability to make an arrangement binding.

“For now.” She held her head high.

It would have to do. “Tez, can you hide her long enough to smuggle her out of the building?”

“I don’t know, Loki, are you going to stop ignoring my requests? We don’t even know what you two agreed to.”

“To get her out of the building, Tez,” I deadpanned. “Sometimes, when I get tired of being the most exciting thing in the room, I too engage in uninteresting transactional conversations. Also, she can’t stay here. Someone’s probably got this meeting room booked later and we’re not going to be able to pretend she’s a pot plant.”

“True, that. Then we need to decide where to take her. My place is off-limits. Mayari?”

“Are we comfortable with her knowing about our powers? If not, I’m out. I have long overdue work to catch up on.”

They both looked my way. “Sure,” I said, shrugging. “She can have a whole vacant shoebox. I mean, apartment. My clothes would probably fit her, too.” Although I doubted they would be up to her usual standards, if her current outfit was anything to go by.

“Done,” said Tez. “Avert your eyes; it’ll make things easier.”

By the time I opened my eyes, Tez was rubbing his hands in satisfaction and Parvati was nowhere to be seen. “Is she -”

“Still here,” he said. “She can hear you, but it doesn’t work both ways. Just in case she turns out to be a screamer.”

Mayari raised her eyebrows. “And why would she be screaming, exactly?”

“No reason.”

“Well, that’s ominous,” I said, sharing a look with the moon goddess. “Remind me to avoid having you turn me invisible in the future if at all possible.”

“Everyone always complains about the side effects,” he grumbled good-naturedly.

I briefly considered the implications of this, then switched to back Sanskrit before he had a chance to elaborate. “Parvati, we’re leaving now.”

“No sense in us all going,” advised Mayari, hesitating. “See if you can’t get some sense out of her, and I’ll keep an eye on the news. They’ve just announced Grace will be giving a press conference in ten minutes, and at least one of us should be monitoring it.”

“Good idea,” I said, giving her a thumbs-up. “In fact, Tez, you should go on alone for a bit. I need to have a hunt around for a good translation assistant. My language skills aren’t going to cut it for what we need. There might be an app somewhere online.”

“Inefficient,” Mayari critiqued. “Just find a translator. I hear you’ve been putting your kidnapping skills to use recently.”

“We can’t trust anyone here,” I cautioned, “and I don’t know what translation companies you think have Sanskrit speakers on the books. It isn’t exactly in high demand.”

“Academics are where it’s at. History buffs, career theologians, professors. People who dress in tweed, attend reenactment camps and take journalistic referencing protocol far too seriously.”

“That’s a very specific second half of the Venn diagram you’ve got there, but – oh. Ah.“ I resisted the urge to bring my palm to my forehead. What were the chances an obsessed ex-professor with a PhD in world mythology and an as-yet-undefined connection to Providence’s computer sabotage would turn out to be a capable Sanskrit speaker? Logic would suggest not that high. My gut, on the other hand, suggested they were very high indeed. “Yeah, okay,” I retracted. “I think I owe someone a visit.”

“Don’t make us wait,” Tez said, opening the door. “Or I’ll redecorate your apartment with murals of Apollo. Including the carpet.”

It was so bad I choked back a laugh. There was also no doubt in my mind there would be a number of people out there who would pay good money to see that.

“Then we’ll need to find our new guest a therapist as well,” Mayari drawled.

“Pretty much,” he replied, sounding upbeat. “See you soon.”