My other untraceable connection told me to fuck off when I checked in with him, to an intermittent backdrop of bad rap verse. Looked like Grace was going to be it for my comms team, then.

In the meantime, I had an idea for what to do about my most immediate predicament. It was coming up now, at the far edge of the park, as trees, genteel landscaping and manicured vegetation gave way to a familiar bustling restaurant strip lit with Durga’s colours.

“Can you smell this where you are?” I asked my unseen observer, inhaling a deep breath through my nose and feeling my stomach rumble in response. “The mouth-watering scents of hot, steaming delicacies? I hope so, because I’m going to order the most succulent meal you’ve ever seen and eat it in front of you bite by tantalising bite. What do they have in the office, again? Right - milk and instant coffee. Enjoy those. Happy to share on my end if you change your mind about meeting up.”

I had a goal, and her name was Regina. With a little luck and a little charm, Durga’s offhand comment about her interest in me would come in handy – although why she’d have noticed me while in Durga’s striking company was a question I had to admit intrigued me in return. If there was anything I could say for Sørine, it was that she was an ideal form for a fugitive attempting to blend in. Which was, of course, why I’d chosen her in the first place. A little less effective as an ethnic minority, but even so.

Questions aside, I needed a new place to stay until I could figure out how to shake my watcher. So much for not dating a random off the street.

I sat myself down at the most central table available and waited. Sure enough, no more than a few seconds had passed before I found a menu being silently thrust in front of my face.

“My favourite waitress!” I greeted her, accepting the menu and looking up into a familiar face. The surliness was back, but there was something else in there too. I flashed her a winning smile. “I was hoping I’d see you again, Regina.”

In not quite the reaction I’d been expecting, she paused, tucked the tablet she was carrying under her armpit, and slammed both hands on the table in front of me, palms down. “You,” she said, leaning into my face, “were telling me the truth yesterday.”

“I -” I broke off, finding myself in the rare position of being taken aback. I gave myself a moment, leaning back and composing myself. “Yes. That is a hobby I’ve been known to engage in.”

“Good,” she said, staring into my eyes. “Which god are you?”

Now I was definitely confused. And interested. I shifted in my chair, repositioning myself to face her. “Keen observation,” I said slowly, drawing out the syllables. “And not for the first time. Can we maybe back up a bit here? What exactly has Durga been telling you?”

I assumed it had been Durga. I couldn’t imagine where else she would have been getting that information from. I was supposed to be winning her over, but felt sufficiently off-balance to take a side detour into the realms of the unknown.

“Your name, please.”

I folded my fingers together and shrugged. “It’s Loki. Or Sørine, at the moment. Take your pick.”

“That Loki?” she asked.

“Why? How many others have you met? I'd say there’s a good chance we’re thinking about the same person, yes.”

“Then you're not trustworthy,” she accused me, looking like she’d eaten a sour fruit by accident. Not who she'd been hoping for, evidently.

“And you’re a very strange waitress. Do you treat every customer like this? Is that what you tell them when they don’t like the food?”

“Of course not. You think I serve gods every day?”

“I’m not ruling it out. This -” I turned my eyes to the sign above the shopfront, “- ‘Top Arrow’ - doesn’t supply Providence by any chance, does it?”

From the mystified look Regina shot me, I guessed not. Still. “You have a lot of explaining to do,” she demanded, leaning even further forward so that her head encroached into my personal space.

“For what? Am I supposed to know you?” I stopped and frowned, all thoughts of flirting forgotten as my mind started drawing potential connections between disparate events. A lot of the strangeness going on seemed to be centred around Singapore; I doubted it was a coincidence. And that line she used was sounding awfully familiar. “Wait, you don’t know anything about a thug lurking around asking about me, do you? Tall, slouchy, looks destined for a career inspecting prison interiors?” Even more intriguing was the address I’d seen hiding in the container task on Lofn’s computer, but it was a hard one to bring up without alerting whoever was spying on my conversations. I didn’t want anyone looking into that building until I had a chance to get there first.

“What?”

“Never mind.” I hoped this wasn’t a case of another geas - or worse, the same geas. The damn things were so hard to pin down. “So what’s your deal? How does someone making minimum wage wiping tables manage to pick not one, but two gods out of a crowd? Straight answer, please. I’ll order a kopi, by the way. As much as I enjoy monopolising your attention, you should probably attend your other customers at some point.”

“They can wait,” Regina replied, lifting her chin even as she lowered her voice. “I can pick you out because I’m psychic. But if you want any more answers than that, you’ll have to give me something in return. And prove you’re telling the truth.”

A psychic mortal, eh? Out of the ordinary, sure, but not unheard of, especially if there was some divine heritage involved. It could have been a lie, but at least it was a direct answer. Strike one against a geas. I smiled a little. It also gave me the perfect excuse to arrange her ongoing company; this was turning out to be easier than I’d thought. That she was making the suggestion and not me was a good look in front of the surveillance, too.

“I knew there was something special about you from the moment I laid eyes on you,” I lied. “I’d be more than happy to oblige. And as they say, there’s no time like the present. It’s a date.”

She pulled her hands off the table as though I’d thrown knives at them, face turning beetroot red. “What? No -”

“Oh, did you think I came back for the food? It’s tasty, but not that good. What if I told you you aroused my curiosity in sufficient quantities for a return trip?”

“I would wonder what you want from me,” she said, red cheeks notwithstanding.

“Wise,” I approved. “In any case, it sounds like we have enough material to indulge each other, for a little while at least. And if you put the kopi on the house, I’ll throw in the first answer for free.” I paused. “Well, not technically for free. For the kopi. It’s still a bargain.”

“Oi!” shouted a patron from a couple of tables over. “Are you going to take my order, or are you just incompetent?”

I shot him a look over the waitress’ shoulder. A well-dressed man in business attire with an expensive tie – loose around his shirt with the top few buttons undone – and expensive shoes. The kind of shoes suited to stepping on people with.

“On second thought,” I suggested, turning back to Regina and clicking my fingers at her to regain her attention, “forget the kopi.” I thumbed my hand in Loose Tie’s direction. “This guy sucks. You could just walk out of here with me right now and let someone else deal with him. I promise you I’m much more fun than anyone else you’re going to be serving tonight.”

For a brief moment she looked tempted, but then shook her head, retrieving the tablet from her armpit and detaching a well-worn stylus with an audible click. “I’d lose my job for that.”

“Probably. Is that important to you?”

Her jaw dropped open. “What kind of question is that? You think jobs grow on trees? Do you know anything about humans?”

“Says the person who looks like she’s barely out of the schooling system. I don’t hide away on a mountain peak fasting all day, you know. Besides, everyone knows jobs grow out of the spillover from trickle-down economics.”

The look she gave me at that was nothing short of incredulous.

“That’s a joke,” I explained, in an attempt at reassurance. “And don’t give me any of that dehumanising speciesist rubbish. I might not be mortal, but it still counts.”

She looked away. “Are you going to place an order or what?”

“Or what,” I responded, pushing my chair out from the table. Loose Tie was giving us both dirty glances from across the room now, and I suppressed the urge to give him the finger. Now wasn’t the time to escalate. “Here’s my proposal. You and I walk out of here together, we have a productive chat, and if you lose your job, I’ll find you another, better source of income.”

Regina turned her head half to the side and glanced at me out of the corner of her eyes. “And I suppose you can just magic money out of thin air?”

“I have my ways.”

Although the most convenient one, Tru’s bank account, was a non-option as long as I had to deal with Providence’s scrutiny. Not unless I wanted to raise some inconvenient questions. Fortunately, there were other methods.

“Listen,” I continued. “I understand your situation better than you might think. Although I’m admittedly a little confused as to why a real psychic would be waiting tables for a pittance. Unless you need a steady supply of spoons to bend, I suppose.” I leant back in the chair and folded my arms. “Are you working here because you enjoy your job, or because you feel like you don’t have a choice? If you ran into someone who could snap their fingers and get you out of this situation, wouldn’t you take it?”

She shook her head. “You don’t get it. I have rent to pay and a grandmother to take care of. Obligations. I can’t just quit. And if you dare give me any of that crap about ‘self-imposed restrictions’, I will murder you.”

“Can’t,” I said, improving my peripheral vision slightly as, out of the corner of my eye, I watched Loose Tie beckon over someone who looked like the restaurant manager.

“Huh?”

“Murder me,” I clarified. “I’m immortal. Best you could hope for is temporary incapacitation.”

“There’s a first for everything.”

“Hmm. True. All the more reason to compensate my way into your good books, then, wouldn’t you agree?”

She glanced at me warily. “How so?”

Loose Tie was really having a go at it, jabbing his finger in our direction while the manager, a middle-aged woman with a ponytail and the kind of age lines that came from chronic stress, did her best to contrive sympathy. It wasn’t particularly convincing.

“Simple,” I told her. “I work for the people who run the world. My daily budget would make you weep. And I’m not terribly fussed where it ends up. I’m happy to throw a bunch your way for the sake of expediting this process.”

“I don’t take bribes,” she said without hesitation. “And that sounds… dangerous.”

“Who mentioned bribes? Or danger?” I raised an eyebrow. “What I’m proposing is all above board and squeaky clean. How much do you want? Two hundred thousand? Five? A million? Invest it wisely and you’ll never have to work again.”

I noticed the hand holding the tablet had started to shake. Seeing me witness it, Regina tightened her grip on the device and held it to her chest, minimising the symptoms, and tucked the other hand into the pouch of her apron. “I wasn’t born yesterday,” she said. “If something sounds too good to be true, it is. Nobody makes an offer like that and means it.”

“Well, as you correctly ascertained, I’m not just anybody,” I reminded her with a wink. “But it does come with one caveat attached. You’re going to have to get a ticket onto the company Helpdesk system.”

She tucked the stylus back into the tablet with another small click, before stashing it in the apron, all thoughts of taking my order apparently forgotten again. “Helpdesk? The gods have an IT department?”

“More of the ‘I’, less of the ‘T’. But yes. You could say it’s their primary export.”

“Huh,” she said, folding her arms. “That explains a lot.”

No arguments there. “There’s more,” I added. “Your ticket can’t just go to anyone. It has to come to me.” I imagined Lofn trying to solve Regina’s financial problems by setting her up with the next available wealthy customer and rolled my eyes. “There’s no telling what you’ll get if it ends up with someone else.”

“Okay,” she said, shrugging without unfolding the arms. “So what’s the catch?”

“You’ll have to worship me. It’s the easiest way to guarantee it ends up in the right place.”

She stared at me for a moment, a myriad of expressions passing over her face in an instant. “Um, I don’t mean to be rude -”

“I know, it’s exactly as awkward as it sounds,” I agreed, pulling a face. “Nothing good ever came out of an adoration-based economy. But here we are, and at least it’s mellowed a bit. Used to be that no one else would even get a look in unless they were a devout follower. If it makes you feel any better, it’ll be a purely practical way of gaming the system.”

“And the… rulers of this company? Your bosses? They don’t have an issue with that?”

“Hah,” I barked. “They invented it. Makes them look stupid if they complain now.”

I could see the internal struggle play out on her features as she tried to determine whether I was telling the truth. “But if you’re paying me money,” she reiterated, “what do I have to pay in return? Practically-speaking.”

“For you? Conscious complicity in the very system actively oppressing you.”

“Oh. Is that all?”

“I know,” I agreed. “It shouldn’t be a sustainable business model but it somehow is. Says it all, really. Providence: Where miracles happen, but only in relation to end of financial year accounting.”

“You’re not reassuring me this isn’t a scam,” Regina said, but she cracked a smile.

“Take the night off,” I pressed, returning to the original subject. “They won’t sack you for one day’s infraction. I have a certain amount of experience with this. If you want, you can tell your manager your grandmother’s taken a turn for the worse.”

It was timely, given that said manager was approaching, and I drew Regina’s attention to her with a nod.

“I can’t lie to my boss,” Regina hissed in a low breath, after making a double take. She clenched at the neck of her apron with one hand, fingers curling around the strap, and turned to face the tired woman.

“Chew,” said the manager, ignoring me completely, “Need I remind you you have customers to serve?” There would be further words later in private, no doubt.

“Of course,” she said, swallowing. “I’ll get on it right away.”

“Absolutely not,” I butted in, not about to let the opportunity go, and rose from the chair. “You can’t let her work tonight. Or for the next week until she’s cleared.” I offered a nod of my head in lieu of a handshake and carried on talking. “Jemima Ward. I work at the national health department. We’re following up on a measles outbreak we believe Regina may have been exposed to two nights ago. There’s a low risk of contagiousness at this stage, but we need to get her home immediately and keep her away from situations where she could expose the disease to anyone who hasn’t been vaccinated. I’m also going to need you to compile a list of everyone who was in the restaurant tonight, both staff and customers – we will need to follow up with them for monitoring and vaccinations.” I paused and looked at the manager, laying on the gravitas. “And you should ensure all your staff are vaccinated immediately as well.”

She bought it, moving a half-step more distant from Regina in a hurried, subconscious motion. “Oh. Oh god. Of course,” she acknowledged. “Chew, go home! What were you thinking, coming in?”

The waitress gave me a hard stare. “I -”

I shook my head sadly. “It’s something we see too often, I’m afraid,” I remarked. “People become so dedicated to their work they neglect to take care of themselves first and foremost.” I made a show of looking around the restaurant, peering over the heads of the seated patrons. My eyes lingered on Loose Tie, who was staring back with an expression of incredulity that not only was nothing being done about his service, but that his hoped-for saviour was now instead taking orders from the source of his distress. I didn’t hold eye contact for long, returning my attention to the supervisor. “Do you have something I can write my details on?”

“Oh. Here. My phone.”

I took it, typed in an official-looking email with a government extension while Regina glared daggers at me, and added Lucy’s phone number as the contact. Never hurt to have a little bit of extra stage dressing. “Good,” I said, handing the phone back. “Now let’s get you out of here,” I said to the waitress. “We have a medical escort service for these situations to minimise contact with the public.” I turned back to her manager. “Any questions or concerns, or if any of your staff start displaying symptoms, give us a call immediately.”

She nodded, a worried frown playing across her lips. “I understand,” she said. “Thank you for intervening so promptly.”

“It’s my job,” I replied. “Safety always comes first.”

We passed by Loose Tie’s table on the way out. With my body shielding my hand from view of the restaurant staff, I held up a middle finger as we passed, shooting him the smug smile of petty triumph. He looked incensed, but, with the manager watching, couldn’t do much more than glower from arm’s length.

Behind me, I heard Regina sigh. “That’s going to come back to bite me. People with attitude don’t last long in this industry.”

“All the more reason to quit before they stamp it out of you,” I suggested, remembering belatedly I was going to have to start pretending I was feeling hungry before long. Should have ordered something to eat while I’d had the chance. “It’s a kind of injury, you know. One most of the world doesn’t have the resources to treat.”

“Yes. I know,” she replied, which took me by surprise. “I can’t miss it. And it’s spreading.”

Right. Psychic. I had a growing suspicion I was standing in the presence of future demon number three, though any transference would have to wait until the coast was clear, and only after Regina’s Helpdesk ticket entered the system, to avoid it being picked up by the reality slice. Still, if I could build up my network of demon lords, it would be a big help on a number of different axes.

The sooner all five were in play, the better.