As usual, Providence’s scumbag-in-chief knew the right words to use to get under my skin. “About that,” I remarked. “I find myself wondering how the obvious lack of new demon lords engenders that reaction.”

I couldn’t say I was surprised by this turn of events. More than anything else, it was Lucy’s untimely absence that was bothering me. As long as Odin didn’t turn on his heel and walk back out of the mirror, I could handle a few unexpected hiccups. But when the devil didn’t keep his appointments, you had to wonder what he was up to.

He wouldn’t betray us, though, surely. Not now.

Would he?

Odin’s smile grew wider, spreading across his face like some kind of corrosive plague. “Well,” he said. “We all know following instructions has never been your strong suit. You could have done what you were told. We both would have benefitted nicely from that arrangement. But no, as usual you let your anger management issues get the better of you and snap up the bait. And what a lovely prize it led to. Planning to kill me with it, were you?”

“Still are,” I growled through gritted teeth.

Odin didn’t possess a reflection, making him look all the more otherworldly amongst an already alien landscape. It was another sacrifice he’d made somewhere between the time he lost the war with Yahweh and the date of his surrender, and I could only guess at what he’d bargained for in return. Whatever it was, it hadn’t helped him win back his empire.

It was a detail I was grateful for now. No matter how much power Tez had under his control, I wouldn’t put it past even a puppet version of Odin to have a mind of its own, and two of them was a nightmare I didn’t want to think about.

Odin raised his arms from his sides and gazed around the expanse, raising a disdainful eyebrow at the prominent ziggurat rising up in the distance. “And this is your best effort? Maybe if you’d put more emphasis on secrecy than ostentatious architecture, you might have had better luck. Or was that Tezcatlipoca’s stroke of genius?”

When I failed to respond, he made an indifferent noise and lowered his arms, spinning on his heel to embark upon the journey towards the ziggurat. One smooth hand beckoned for me to follow even as his back was turned, his layers of heavy clothing swooshing out behind him even in the absence of wind.

“You know I’m going to get what I want,” he remarked. “Side with me now and I probably won’t kill you with it. You still value your life, don’t you?”

After a moment of hesitation, I accompanied him down the path, leaving Mayari behind. “Don’t insult me,” I growled. “You couldn’t care less if I lived or died if I didn’t have something you wanted.”

“A little harsh, don’t you think? But that is how the world works, Loki. Partnerships don’t run on altruism, but mutual benefit. People like us understand that. We’re cut from the same cloth, blood brother.”

I scowled at his use of the outdated endearment. I’d been young and ambitious, flush with success at charming the Allfather himself and too foolish to realise I was the one who’d been beguiled. “Not where it matters.”

“Exactly where it matters. We both have an agenda; let’s not pretend otherwise. No matter how you look at it, the world as it stands is doomed to ruin. Your way would see it dissolve into further chaos and disarray. My way would usher in a new era of enlightenment and prosperity for humanity. Why do you think I’ve had my team working on developing all these new technologies? It wasn’t Yahweh’s idea, let me tell you. Prometheus is an amateur next to what I have planned.”

I gave him a disgusted look. Aside from the fact Odin’s vision of a new world would involve him having his ego stroked constantly from the driver’s seat, I could read between the lines enough to pinpoint the political spin.

“’Chaos’ is a loaded term. I want to remove barriers and the gatekeepers who set them.” This was accompanied by a pointed look in Odin’s direction. “Take it far enough and you don’t end up with chaos. You end up with -”

“- freedom? And you think the predators of the world would just let that happen?”

Ironic, given it was coming from one.

"Take it far enough and they won’t have a choice,” I argued. “Holding a gun to someone’s head only works on the vulnerable.”

“Listen to yourself. 'Take their choice away?' You do want to impose your will on others. You, and everyone else. All that matters is who wins and gets to set the narrative. You could do far worse than the one I’ll deliver.”

It wasn’t the same at all, I thought, fury building inside the centre of my chest, but Odin was gazing up ahead, scrutinising the dark shape of the ziggurat. At the top of the structure, silhouetted against the stars, a long silver object glinted atop the plinth. Even from this distance, I could feel it simmering on the edge of my awareness, its familiar outline waking a painful nostalgia I hadn’t felt in a long time. Mirror Tez the Second was nowhere to be seen.

“I’ll admit you’ve come a long way,” the Allfather remarked, turning his eyes from the lure back to me. “Building yourself a court while on Helpdesk. Roping Tezcatlipoca into being your guard dog in particular.”

Tez, I prompted the air, glad he couldn’t hear the conversation, we’re far enough in. Tell me Durga’s on her way.

Nearly there, came the response. If I were you, I’d get out of the firing line.

“I’m not building a court,” I retorted, trying to buy more time.

“Aren’t you? Whose idea was this? Tez’s? The man should stay in cat form, because he has the motivation of one. And Lucifer has too many sanctimonious ideas about self-sacrifice to draw other people into his messes. But you? You have them wrapped around your little finger doing your dirty work. Admit it, Loki. Everything you know, you learnt from me.” He cocked his head. “But I see your friends are on the move, so we’re going to have to cut this short.” He made a mocking bow in my direction. “I want you to know that everything to come was only possible because of you.”

I stole a glance at the ziggurat where the spear still lay unprotected and almost missed the moment Odin shifted into raven form, taking to the air in an explosive flurry of wings hurtling towards the pyramid.

He didn’t get very far before the bird let out a squawk and fell to the ground, an arrow piercing through its neck. A second arrow pinned its wings together on the way down, altering the course of its trajectory and causing it to skid along the mirrored surface of the salt flat.

“Woo!” crowed a triumphant voice behind me. “Too easy.”

Durga raced into my field of vision, tucking a golden bow under one of her many arms. Upon reaching the bird, she skidded to a halt and lifted one foot.

Bones crunched under her shoe.

It was too easy. In a nonhuman form, Odin wouldn’t have access to his arsenal and his ability to create runes would be limited, leaving him at a disadvantage. Sacrificing that for an extra boost of speed didn't seem worth it.

And if Durga was here, she wasn’t getting the spear.

“Why aren’t you with Gungnir?” I demanded, turning my eyes back to the plinth.

She grinned. “Relax. I left it in safe hands. Getting in the first strike was more important while we still had the element of surprise. And from everything Apollo and Tez were saying, that wasn’t going to last much longer. Though I really thought he would put up more of a –"

A shout from Apollo cut her short. “Move!” In full interrogation mode, he came sprinting out from the shelter of the nearest obsidian spire. “He’s still here! The bird’s an illusion!”

Misdirection. Of course.

Durga’s eyebrows shot up but she scattered, leaping clear just as the space around her flared into life in a circle of energy. Not runes, but something else I wasn’t familiar with. By the looks of it, an attempt at containment. Being unable to best Durga in a fair fight, Odin was no doubt looking to remove her from the picture.

Paranoid, I checked on Gungnir as Apollo started firing energy bolts out of his hands with laser-like precision. It was still there atop the ziggurat, no doubt being watched over by Tez. But there was movement up there now, too.

Movement in the shape of a large cat. Which didn’t really narrow it down, given the current crowd.

The cat leapt up the final terrace on the ziggurat, its front paws gripping the edge as its hind legs scrabbled at the smooth wall in undignified fashion. After a few seconds it managed to pull itself onto the platform, shake itself off, and bound over to the plinth with the spear.

If Tez had noticed – and I didn’t see how he couldn’t have – he wasn’t doing anything about it. Which I hoped meant it was on our side.

A second version of Apollo somersaulted out of the lake’s reflection, landing with a splash on the surface next to its doppelganger as Tez leant his skills to the fight. The original Apollo made a rare double-take but didn’t argue, and the double joined him in criss-crossing the landscape with enough energy beams to make it difficult for the CIO to hide.

One of Durga’s hands grabbed me around the waist and pulled me backwards as a laser sheared past my shoulder and ricocheted off an unexpected invisible wall, blasting a crater in the lake nearby. A second later another followed it up and flew straight through into the horizon. Odin had already moved. Between both versions of Apollo and Tez plus Odin all in the same location, it was obvious Apollo’s foresight was suffering greatly.

Durga gave me a push away from the centre of the action. “Go on. Get out of here.”

I glanced up at the cat. It had launched itself onto the plinth and was picking up Gungnir in its mouth. Making it fifteen approximate kilograms of the world’s most dangerous cat toy. “Yours?”

She nodded. “Mine.”

It was something.

In my mind’s eye I could sense new runes flaring to life at seemingly random locations across the salt flat, simple spells or partial ones which didn’t make a whole lot of sense given the context. Runes for chaos and destruction sat alongside ones for trust and fertility, and were erratic enough I couldn’t trace Odin’s path, or even guess at what form he’d taken. Whatever it was, it had the hallmarks of something big and I didn’t like the look of it.

Several of the runes blinked out as the salt upturned and resettled back into a smooth, unbroken mirror. Tez was on it.

The next round appeared in the air itself; glowing silver glyphs hanging vertically in the sky, some as large as buildings. I snatched my arm away as one the size of my little fingernail appeared near my elbow.

Tez?

They don’t physically exist, he replied. I can’t stop them.

“I can try,” said Durga, skewering a naudhiz rune that had appeared next to her knee with a trident she conjured out of nowhere. The glyph rippled, glowed brighter for a split second, then shattered into rapidly fading motes of light. “And succeed. But they’re being created faster than I could get to them all.” She frowned. “And I’m fast.”

Between the lasers and the rapidly growing tableau of runes, the scene was starting to look like it would trigger epileptic seizures in the blind. I wasn’t sure if Odin’s goal had been to disorient us by filling our senses with the equivalent of early internet popup ads, but if so, he was succeeding. All it needed was each one to emit out of tune screeching to complete the picture.

I squinted past the visual mess to the ziggurat, where the cat was now leaping down the terraces towards us, ignoring the stairs completely. I saw now it was an enormous lion the size of a buffalo.

I nudged Durga. “Should keep an eye on that. If Odin goes for it -”

“Good point. Though Tez should be able to handle it. And I thought I told you to go.”

“Must have slipped my mind.”

She smashed another rune. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“Only if you don’t do your job.” I composed a runic spell of my own, scratched in blood on the skin of my arm; a basic enough affair bestowing general protection. Much to my surprise, I found Durga extending a palm towards me, and made to repeat the process before rethinking it and going for augmentation first instead.

“Hah,” she said. Another misfiring energy bolt lanced our way and she casually swatted it away, reflecting it off her palm as easily as if it had been composed of paper mache. Protection would indeed have been redundant. “Wow. That feels amazing. I feel like I could outpace Odin now.”

“Go for it. If you get addicted, though, I’m not becoming your supplier.”

Far from amazing, my arm was itching where I’d drawn the runes. I made a double-take to find the skin already red and raw, white patches blistering even as I watched, then transferred my gaze to the rune near my elbow. It was jera, the rune for harvest. Not something you expected to see on a battlefield unless for some reason you really had it in for plants.

When I poked it, it sprouted claws of light and sheared off the tip of my finger.

I stared at the stump, which was being sluggish to respond to my efforts to heal it. “Actually, we might have a prob –”

She was already gone.