I touched down in Tru’s bathroom, much to the chagrin of one of the tourists from Singapore who was putting on makeup in the mirror when I appeared. She took one look at the bloody hole in my chest, squeaked unbecomingly, and edged her way around the wall of the room as if the tiles had magical protective powers.

“I hope this isn’t your normal reaction to people in need of emergency medical care,” I said, although it probably didn’t help that I was carrying a spear tall enough to scrape the ceiling. “Door handle’s over there.”

The refugee finally took her eyes off me long enough to fumble her way out, the door closing behind her with a click. I balanced the spear on top of the towel rack, sighed, and set about washing out the blood and gribbly bits.

Privacy remained elusive, however, as a knock at the entrance interrupted me. According to the threads of the pact, I had a pretty good idea who it was.

“You’ve got some nerve,” I snarled, opening the door again.

Lucy’s gaze briefly raked past my wound before alighting on the towel rack. “In my defence,” he said, “it seems you’d be dead right now if not for my discretion.”

He stepped forward, towards the spear, but I moved to block his path.

“Not a chance in hell. You’ve pushed me and pushed me, and I’ve given you the benefit of the doubt every time. But sixty years of goodwill has its limits. This –” I gestured to my chest, “- is the least of what we have to deal with thanks to you.” I backed up, not taking my eyes off Lucy, until my hand rested on the spear behind me. “I’m only going to ask once. And if your answer isn’t to my satisfaction, I’m going to take this thing far away and leave it somewhere you’ll never be able to find it.”

A flash of annoyance crossed his face. “So you’ll just leave it lying around for Providence to pick up instead? That’s asking for trouble.”

“You’re underestimating me again,” I warned him. “I’ll find a way. Or perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I won’t. Maybe I want to kick up some trouble around here, because by Durga’s stupid cat we’re already deep in it thanks to you. Why not go all the way?”

Lucy’s eyes flickered past me once again to the spear. “Listen,” he said, raising a cautionary hand. “I couldn’t be there, and I couldn’t tell you. This whole plan relied on him believing we had Gungnir. And the only way that was going to work was if you believed it. So yes, I set you up. But judging by the fact you’re back relatively unharmed and still have it in your possession, I’m assuming it paid off.”

My laugh came out as more of a bark. “Oh, that’s rich,” I said. “We lost two of our pact signatories, including one who just happens to be an indispensable member of the public enemy’s management team, Durga’s going to show up to work with an obvious injury, and I have this.” I waved my hand at the hole. “You can see through it.”

“Well, don’t go walking around with your shirt off,” Lucy said. “Obvious solution. I’d offer you a dressing gown, but it appears this place is all out.” He sidestepped into the room, keeping his distance from the spear.

“Tch,” I said, materialising one around me. The transformation was much slower than I would have liked. “Don’t dodge the subject.”

“I’m not,” he said, leaning against the far wall. “Fact is, I’m fairly sure Odin’s a mind reader.”

“Sure he is,” I scoffed. “I mean, he’s good – very good – but I’ve fooled him before.”

“Maybe he wanted you to believe he couldn’t. Or maybe he wasn’t trying to read your thoughts on those occasions,” he suggested. “I don’t know the specifics of how it works.”

“And act towards his own detriment? You don’t know Odin as well as you think you do.”

“Unless he was in it for the long game. And I think we can both agree that’s in character. You said yourself he knows too much. But what really tipped me off was your geas.”

It bothered me that he kept referring to it as mine, when I couldn’t even remember making it.

“The whole ‘not being able to communicate information’ detail extends to more than just speech,” he continued. “Otherwise anyone could simply write their way out of a bind. I noticed my thoughts kept sliding off the geas when Odin was around. It’s not hard to make the connection.”

It made a terrible kind of sense, and I wished it didn’t. ‘God of wisdom’ indeed. More like god of stolen secrets. As for the geas, Odin being a mind reader explained why I would have put myself under. It could have explained why Lucy had to keep erasing my memories all those times. Which begged the question again – what secret had I been trying to keep?

“It’d be one of the few times one of those things actually ended up being useful,” I grumbled. “If you’re right, I wish you’d told me. The number of wasted opportunities I’ve had, where I could have pictured him prancing around in a variety of compromising situations –”

“And if I had, we’d have lost one of our few advantages. While you were all running around convinced you had Gungnir in your possession, Odin got to experience the joys of labouring under critical misinformation for once in his career. Misinformation, I might add, resulting in your success. You did succeed, didn’t you?”

“As yet to be confirmed,” I said, with a small smile, “but I don’t like his chances. I hear time loops are especially prone to fountains of blood this time of year.”

Lucy snorted. “You didn’t.”

“I’ve only fantasised about it since the stupid thing appeared in the office,” I retorted. “Much like the million other convoluted scenarios required to pull off a hit on someone who has an answer for everything.”

“Then office security is down,” he stated.

“Yes. Which is why I’m here cleaning up so I can get in there quickly and deal with the fallout.”

Lucifer gave me a troubled look. “Loki,” he said, “do you know what time it is?”

Gripping the spear close, I made my way to the door and poked my head around the exit. It was still dark outside on the balcony. The whole endeavour must have flown past faster than I’d thought. “Close to dawn, I expect. I don’t know why –”

“It’s eight in the morning,” he interrupted. “The sun should have been up an hour ago.”

I pulled my head back around the door to stare at him. “Well, this day keeps getting better and better.” Off the top of my head, I could think of a number of explanations for why the sunrise might have been running on a delay. None were good and most of them were probably our fault.

“Assuming we have one at all. The news coming out of the Eastern hemisphere is that the sun just disappeared out of the sky. The scientific community is scrambling for an explanation, and the longer it stays unfixed, the harder it will be to cover up. If you go in as Odin now, you’ll be stepping into what could be the largest PR crisis in company history.”

My mind whirred, and I felt myself sinking back against the nearest wall, propping myself up with the spear like a walking stick. “You orchestrated this,” I muttered.

The sun would be fixed before long; of that I had no doubt. Providence wasn’t exactly short on sun gods, and whether or not it was Apollo’s death which had triggered its absence or Tez drawing too heavily on the super-mirror was immaterial. That it hadn’t been fixed already just went to show how badly the world’s operations were being mismanaged.

“Not like this,” he said. “I swear. Apollo wasn’t meant to die. He was meant to help us.”

The anger which had begun to die down consolidated its way back into a hard lump at the base of my throat. “Maybe if you’d been there –”

With a slam, the slowly-closing door behind me flew open again as Mayari stormed into the bathroom and halted upon seeing Lucy. One arm came up and the devil went shooting into the air, stopping just short of the ceiling. “You owe me answers,” she demanded. “Now. Or I crush you to pieces, friendship be damned.” She glanced towards me. “And don’t try to weasel him out of this.”

I shook my head at her. “No, have to say I’m with you on this one.”

Lucy winced. He made a short cough, righted himself and floated gently back to the floor, heels coming to rest on the tiles with a small click. Mayari glanced at her fingers as if they’d broken out into a spontaneous operatic performance, but lowered the hand.

“As am I.” Durga’s voice, firm but quiet, joined the chorus. She no longer had Apollo’s body with her, but her arms were stained the colour of her sari and a trail of bloody footprints extended behind her over the living room carpet. The background chatter outside had turned to silence, and when I peered out into the wider living area a cluster of shocked faces stared back. Tru’s and Yun-Qi’s were both among them.

“Why don’t we start with this spear?” Mayari stipulated, refocusing on Lucy. “What is it? Really?”

Lucy peered past her for a moment, seeming to weigh up the consequences of having an unintended audience. Then it seemed as if some kind of switch must have flicked in his head, and he slumped back a bit.

“It has a few names,” he said in a lowered voice. “The Holy Lance; the Lance of Longinus; the Spear of Destiny.”

They were not unfamiliar. A moment of stunned silence filled the room, and I became intensely aware of what I was holding. The skin on my hands itched.

In Grace’s infamous and now decidedly blown-to-smithereens papal cache, there had been an artifact by the same labels. Like every so-called ‘mystical’ weapon in the public eye, it had been a fraud. Little more than tetanus on a stick.

I tried and failed to read Mayari’s expression as she put up a hand to steady herself against the wall.

It wasn’t Gungnir. It was better than Gungnir.

Fighting Providence had always been an abstract. Even now, some part of my mind knew going after the tyrant was a demotion waiting to happen. But now we were holding the very weapon able to give us definitive victory. Commissioned by the chief executive himself to kill his own son thousands of years ago, and forged from the blood of as many angels. A not insignificant number of Lucy’s siblings had died to make this thing.

No wonder he’d lied.

“What?” Durga stiffened, rigid enough it seemed a light breeze could topple her over. “That still exists?”

Boy, did I know the feeling.

“Not as far as anyone outside this room is concerned. I took an immense risk bringing it out of hiding.” Lucy's eyes met mine. “You wanted to know why I wasn’t there with you? Loki wasn’t the one in danger. It was me.”

The hole in my chest strongly disagreed with that assessment, but I didn’t press the issue. If Odin had been a mind reader and recognised the spear for what it really was, there was no doubt he would have gone after Lucy. And then Yahweh, I realised, connecting the dots. As it was, he’d had zero qualms about taking out Apollo, despite the chaos he must have known it would cause. Or perhaps because of it.

Durga’s form flickered for an split second, and the next thing I knew, my hands were grasping at air as she clutched the spear in her three good ones, red-knuckled and trembling. “We need to get this back to where it came from. If Yahweh looks and finds it –”

Mayari narrowed her eyes. “Or we could take it to him, right now, while his seer lackey is out of play. Before he gets a replacement. We’re on a roll. We could bring this whole establishment to the ground today.” Squaring her chin, she gestured to the runed weapon. Now that I knew they were there, I couldn’t unsee the typos encircling its handle. “This is our key to victory. One good strike. That’s all we need.”

“Easy there,” I said, joining my voice to the chorus of protests all around. “Putting aside the fact we don’t even know where he is, let’s maybe not. Odin might be down, but what do you think will happen in the backlash? Our numbers are down and half of us are injured, and that was from taking down just one of them.”

“They’ve got Vish and Enki,” Durga added. “Vish won’t stand for it and Enki could just bring him back like nothing happened.”

“And why the hell would he do something that stupid?” Mayari growled. “You know the execs are losing out, too, right? We’ve all seen what a wreck he’s become. He has no love for Yahweh.”

“Why would he sentence billions to eternal suffering?” Durga countered. “Why didn’t I stop it? Or anyone?” She bowed her head. “I know you’re hurting about Tezcatlipoca, but we can’t. It would be a fool’s errand. We have to fight the long war.”

“I hate to break it to you,” argued Mayari, “but that option became a lot less viable the moment your boss got a shiv to the ribs. We could cover the absence of one person. One. Now, no matter what happens, Providence is going to realise someone on its leadership team is missing and take action accordingly. We don’t have the luxury of a long war.” She held out an arm. “Give me the spear.”

“No,” Durga said.

“Do you know how long I’ve waited –” Mayari’s eye blazed silver for a moment, but a moment later the fire died and she dropped the arm, glancing to the side. “Of course you do,” she said.

“At least let me remove the enchantment,” I chimed in. “You don’t have to let go.” Present company might not have been able to tell the difference, but anyone from my pantheon who knew their stuff would think I’d taken a few knocks to the head if they made the connection.

Durga hesitated, but a moment later she held out the spear.

Raising a hand, I traced out a three-rune combination on the surface of the spear with my fingertip. As I pushed the spell onto the artifact, the illusion fell away with little effort, dispelling the cringe.

Behind it lay a different weapon. The Spear of Destiny was about the same width and length as Gungnir, but bore a smooth wooden shaft of Roman design. The spearhead was indented in the middle and wrapped in a chunk of solid gold, in what had to be some kind of impractical design decision by someone who’d taken the old adage about winning battles with money way too literally. Further embellishments adorned the metal; serrations I assumed had been commissioned by the same excitable designer for aesthetic reasons and ended up being useful by accident.

It didn’t look like much, but not all divine artifacts did. And it was old. Older than Gungnir. The real Gungnir would have shown signs of age too, of course, whereas the illusion had been pristine. In hindsight, a red flag I should have seen coming.

At least Odin had missed it too.

“So now you know,” Lucy said, his gaze intent on the spear. “I stole it from Dad. Thought it might stop him, but you can see how that turned out. Half the reason he went after the Romans first was because he wanted them to make him another one. It wasn’t as if there were even many of us left to kill by then. But you know what he’s like.” He paused, eyeing Durga, and held out a hand. “I’d like it back. Please.”

“But the opportunity –”

“Will get you killed,” said Lucy. “Or more likely worse. If there was patricide to be committed, I should have done it back then. But I thought I could talk him out of it.”

“Fatal mistake,” I acknowledged.

“As far as I’m concerned, the lack of fatality was the problem.” Lucy’s tone was dark.

“Which we can rectify now,” Mayari insisted. “Let them sound the alarms. They’re disorganised and unprepared, and we can use the chaos to our advantage. I have nothing but respect for you, Lucifer, but you wait and you plot, and the time for that is long over. You’re waiting for a perfect confluence which will never come. I can lead us to victory. We need only take the final step.” She raised her eyes towards Durga. “You’ve seen what I can do, and your sisters are safe. Protect me long enough to take him out.”

Durga’s hand wavered, but she made no move to pass the spear to either petitioner. “And if we lose?”

“It’s worth the risk. This might be the best chance we ever get.”

My eyes wandered past all of them towards Tru’s lavish wall-length mirror. The new Tez hadn’t shown himself since the collapse of the Bolivian pocket dimension, and it seemed like a glaring omission. I wondered if he was in there, or watching us through it somehow.

“You’ll die,” I broke in. “Didn’t you hear the warning earlier?”

“That was about a conversation, not –”

“Pfft,” I said, waving a hand. “I know how seers work. Presumably we’re supposed to talk you down or something.”

Mayari frowned. “You’re supposed to help me out here.”

“I knew someone who used to go charging in guns blazing,” I said. “There’s a reason they aren’t here anymore.”

“Wait,” said Durga. She seemed to wake up a bit, and I thought I detected a note of admiration in her voice. “Are you talking about Thor? He levelled the original office. And, er, then got demoted. Facilities have had to build every new structure under the Thor Protocol ever since.”

“I’m not Thor,” Mayari snapped.

I snickered. “Oh, trust me, that role is irreplaceable.”

Durga closed her eyes for a moment, then wordlessly passed the Spear of Destiny back to Lucy, who accepted it with a small bow.

“We’ve still got Loki,” the latter announced, dusting a spatter of lingering salt grains off the haft of the weapon. “Which means the plan can still proceed, albeit with some extra improvisation.”

It was going to take more than improvisation to fix the mess we were in. Accounting for Apollo’s disappearance was going to be hard enough without the brouhaha Operations would cause rebooting the sun by turning it off and on again. But options were scarce, and if nothing else, I could milk Odin’s reputation for all it was worth. Which admittedly wasn’t much.

“I hope you’re right,” Mayari said with a sigh. “Because my gut tells me you’ve just made a terrible, terrible mistake."

I looked back at Lucy, and wondered the same thing.

The subject of my attention made a small cough. “I’m taking this home,” he said. “The rest of you should go, especially Loki. Odin will be wanted at quite a few appointments right about now, I imagine. Good luck.”

As he vanished it seemed to break the spell over the room, gods disappearing like flies in a bathtub.

We really had to stop meeting in bathrooms.

Regardless of what anyone said, Odin’s appointments would just have to wait some more. There was one last thing I had to do before signing my life away to Providence anew under the guise of my oldest enemy.

It was time to trigger the geas.