It was my fault, it occurred to me, that the pact was under stress. It hadn’t been the exorcism stirring up trouble so much as my old body setting off alarm bells in my cell, under formal supervision and clearly unable to be woken.

And to top it off, I was stuck as a mosquito for the immediate future. Great for spying, abysmal for communication. The one benefit, I supposed, was that if everything did turn to permanent crap - more so than it already was - Providence would have a marginally more difficult time tracking me down. I could hide out in the aura of someone with powers and let it disrupt any scrying efforts until they got tired of faffing around and brought out the big guns.

I shouldn’t have let myself get seduced by the promise of entertainment, I knew. I had it worse than Achilles in that regard. But it was too late to prevent it, so my best option now was to keep my head low and see how it played out.

“Excellent work,” Themis boomed at her usual volume. Every aspect of her appearance was manicured to perfection. She wore a full power suit for the occasion; white shirt against black blazer, crisp lines running down the front of her impeccably-fitted trousers. Her mid-length dark hair hung loose down her shoulders in controlled waves without a single hair out of place, as if conforming to the rigidity of her personality. “I’ll take it from here. All of you should now leave.”

This didn’t go down well with most of the others. The officer who’d been helping Neetu with first aid glanced around the room, checking with his colleagues for moral support before clearing his throat. “One of us will need to stay to keep an eye on things. We understand you provide medical services, of a sort, but this is a police station. The law always comes first.”

In a rare moment of approval, Themis smiled at the man. “Indeed, but you don’t need to remind me of that. As far as you need to be concerned, I am the law.”

The policeman’s eyebrows rose, and his back straightened in indignation. Typical Themis. Even when she liked people, she managed to muck up the interpersonal relations. What to her was a literal statement was a threat to anyone else. Or at least a statement of supreme arrogance, though I wasn’t exactly in a position to cast stones at her for that one.

Seniority-wise, she was as high up as Apollo, and there was some overlap in their positions. In spite of that, they ran their respective departments very differently. Where Shitface hopped around the globe like a rabbit on steroids, it was rare for Themis to venture outside Providence’s headquarters. Apollo prioritised and gave matters his personal attention; Themis micromanaged her own people so much she had little choice but to leave the public interactions to her underlings. If she’d been in charge of IT instead of Thoth, whose legendary reclusiveness extended even to interactions with his own team, I would have been demoted for mutiny within days of my amalgamation.

All that time spent puppeteering indoors leant itself to a certain disconnect from society, empathy and nuanced judgement. Themis knew every earthly law inside out, made even Lucy look like an amateur, but I had the impression her brain was teetering on the verge of being something more alien than human, as far as that meant anything, full of interactions between ranks and numbers, hierarchies and histories, all compartmentalised into a filing system only she could understand.

And getting worse. Like Apollo and the empty residence he never visited. Like Eris, who must have been on the verge of cracking for good. Maybe even like me. Maybe the only reason I wasn’t batshit insane by now was down to Lucy erasing it out of me every few decades. Powers or no powers, we were all suffering.

I wasn’t the only one who could see the current situation was pelting towards a head-on collision with catastrophic miscommunication. Officer Number Four, the one Neetu had been arguing with, looked from first aid guy to Themis and visibly gulped. In quick movements she straightened her cap, brushed her fringe straight and ran her fingers along the edge of her collar to ensure it was folded correctly, before stepping between the two and treating Providence’s Head of Compliance to a small bow. It was sufficient to distract the goddess’ attention.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” she said, projecting an air of calm composure. “Our junior officers do not have the required security clearance to have been briefed on either your authority or the wider situation.”

“I see,” Themis acknowledged. “Then they shouldn’t be here. Thank you for the information.”

The other four officers vanished from the room before she’d even finished speaking. Where they were now was a question only Themis knew the answer to.

Four’s nostrils flared. She closed her eyes and expelled a brief breath from her nose. “Of course,” she said, reopening the former, looking the goddess of justice directly in the eye. “I’ll leave you alone with the problem case and ensure this room remains undisturbed for the duration. To ensure our records remain impeccable, it would be helpful if you could let us know when you’re done and return our officers to their assigned desks.”

Four had worked with Themis before, I gathered. Prolonged exposure forced most people to learn which buttons to push without seeming to, or end up on the wrong side of an escalation ticket. Mortals couldn’t get demoted; it was one of the Rules. And Themis didn’t kill unless ordered. But boy, did she enforce.

To have known that, however, Four would have to have had at least a few separate run-ins with the goddess of justice, possibly even substantial ongoing dealings, and it didn’t add up. The insignia on her uniform marked her as an inspector. Senior enough for me to believe she knew about Providence, but not nearly enough to be at the level where she’d have regular contact with a department head. Even national governments went through intermediaries lower down in the corporate hierarchy.

Themis, only one step down from the executive suite, had the entire world to run. No way would she have time to keep popping into a particular station in Singapore. Especially Singapore, where crime was far lower on the average criminal’s list of priorities than cleaning up properly after the dog on its daily walk. She wouldn’t have been here for me – I fancied myself a nuisance, but I was Shitface’s problem most of the time, and most of my disruption was intended to get under his skin rather than cause any serious damage.

Meanwhile,Themis, of all people, had been up to something right under my nose, and I’d been oblivious to it the whole time. If I’d had any lingering doubt something big was going down in this city, it was now gone.

The way she’d singled me out was starting to make more sense now. It had never been about my behaviour. It was about my location. I lived in Singapore, and I had a talent for sticking my nose where it wasn’t wanted even without my powers. She must have been looking for an excuse to get me out of the way.

What the hell was going on in this city?

A click sounded from the door as it shut behind Number Four. Its lock whirred a moment later in an altogether more definitive portent of doom.

I’d expected Themis would examine the body, but instead she made a small turn and looked upwards, straight at me. I froze, pouring my non-existent resources into camouflage, but it turned out she was just addressing the security camera.

“Invoking crisis management protocol Lamed,” she announced. “This matter is not for prying eyes.”

Wait – crisis? I felt the camera shut down under my legs, its electronic hum dying out following a near-imperceptible click. Some kind of anti-surveillance measure. If I’d been in possession of vocal cords, I might have been able to see whether it had also blinded my other observer. I’d have to resign myself to not knowing.

Now Themis did look down at my cast-off. For an empty husk, its breath was gentle, the rise and fall of its chest peaceful, serene. Its regenerative qualities would linger for a bit before weakening, and it would pass as an immortal for a while longer, at least until I dropped it into a lava tube. Not that I’d get the chance now.

“Wake up, Loki,” Themis ordered. Her brow furrowed when the body failed to move. “I said, wake up,” she tried again. “Do your duty and obey a senior manager.”

Her power was hitting me, because I felt about as awake as a bunch of preteens watching their first illicit horror film. Even though I wasn’t where she thought I was, it didn’t exempt me from coming under its sway.

Time to plan my exit. I made my way up the mount connecting my perch to the ceiling and began inching my way towards the opposite wall. It was slower than flying, but better to avoid catching the eye.

“Hmph,” Themis grumbled, and reached into the back pocket of her trousers, retrieving a silver phone. She tapped on it a few times and held it to her ear. The person on the other end answered immediately, though I couldn’t make out who it was or what they were saying.

“No,” she answered, after a moment. “She’s not responding. Looks like they got her.”

I halted, two legs still mid-air. Who the what, now? This demanded further investigation. I resumed my journey across the ceiling, but most of my attention remained focused on that conversation.

“Yes, I know she has her little tricks,” Themis said into the phone, sounding frustrated. “That’s why I’m bringing her in for a screening. We’ll give her the full sweep; it should pick up any hidden edge cases. But we know she was a target, and this fits their M.O. Meanwhile, we’ve got a serious breach to deal with –” She broke off and waited, and when she spoke again her voice was colder. “Yes, I am.” Another pause. “I think you’re jumping to conclusions.” Another, shorter pause. “Well, of course I am. But the evidence points that way. Loki’s an undeniable pain in the neck, but even if you’re right, she’s not the priority. Either she’s been taken and we write her off, or she’s pushed herself into a demotion, in which case we punish accordingly. My team will get to the bottom of it, but the result’s the same. What we should be doing is dealing with the bigger fish.”

She went quiet for a minute while the voice on the other end spoke, and when she responded, it was with a discernible note of anger. “If you have a problem with the way I do things, raise it with Vishnu. This may be your discovery, but it’s our investigation, and I answer to him, not you. We have protocols and I’m not about to break them. If our process is flawed, it’s a matter of submitting a change for formal review.”

She hung up, making an exasperated noise as she did, and returned her attention to the body on the mattress. “You’re just a magnet for trouble, aren’t you?” she addressed it. “These people have no idea what they’re getting themselves into, and now we’re all in greater peril because of it. Not that you’ve ever had a shred of consideration for anyone other than yourself.”

Of course Themis would think that, I figured, annoyed. There was no room for subtlety in that brain of hers.

One tan hand ran through her hair, which disrupted its perfect arrangement not one iota. “No one bloody listens to me,” she moaned. “I told them it was a disaster waiting to happen. But no, it was all ‘Oh, that’s nice, Themis. Run along and organise things. Who cares about insignificant details like cause and effect when we have prophecy? Oh, that’s right. No one.’ Until they need someone to clean up their bloody mess.” She looked down at the sleeping body and shook her head. “Third one this year. Damn it, Vishnu, pull your head out of the sand.”

She sighed, winking out of existence halfway through. A moment later her voice boomed from the other side of the door as she dove into questioning Four.

I waited, hoping more useful information would be forthcoming, but it was all procedures and witness statements, and I already knew how that went. Even so, it all led towards a very interesting path. It wasn’t much of a leap to conclude Providence was ahead of the curve on the same thing Lucy and I had stumbled onto. If I was being targeted by someone for something, it was probably related to the mystery software on my computer, and possibly to the thug turning up on my literal doorstep. I was starting to regret not revealing myself – it might have been an opportunity to get some answers. Christina, or whatever her real name was, might have talked if I’d given her a chance.

Or I might have been ‘taken’. Whatever that was supposed to mean.