The second we stepped into the spirit world, the owl flew from Loki’s shoulder and became a woman in a feather cloak.

“We walk very close to the paths of the dead,” she said, softly.

I had no idea who she was, other than Native American – that much was obvious in the form she had taken.

“Stay on the path. I got it.”

“This place is dangerous even to gods.” Then she turned and started to walk down a narrow trail.

It rapidly became rocky, and I was worried I was going to have to be second cousin to a mountain goat to navigate it. The drop off seemed to go into nothingness, and I sensed that it was part of the world of the dead.

The woman was a death god. Didn’t we risk handing another one over to Anansi? I decided to trust that Loki knew what he was doing.

To me, he said, “So, you know that if you took his side…”

“He tried that line on me. If I join him, Ragnarok never has to happen.”

“You know better.”

I shrugged. “I don’t want it to happen today. I don’t want it to happen tomorrow. I know that nothing lasts forever.”

“Not even us,” Loki mused.

Maybe, I thought with sudden insight, that was part of why he changed all the time.

But if nothing lasted forever did that include death? Maybe…I thought with a shiver that maybe the cycle itself couldn’t last, not forever, that one day there would be nothing but the void.

As if she had read my mind, the owl woman spoke. “There is one thing that lasts forever, young goddess. Change.”

Kanesha was very silent, staying very close to me. “I really don’t like this place.” A pause. “I…”

I realized she was also putting me between her and the drop off. I’d had no idea…she was obviously scared of heights.

The height didn’t bother me. The knowledge that the fall went somewhere I might not be able to come back from did. “I won’t let you fall.”

“I know, but…brr…”

Owl woman spoke again. “It levels out.”

With that reassurance, Kanesha lifted her head a little bit more.

I mused that she hadn’t mentioned when it leveled out.

Coyote didn’t show up. I suspected he was off working his own plan and hoped we wouldn’t bump into him in the worst way.

Okay. Where would you keep an imprisoned death god?

“He might not have him…”

“We don’t have Coyote, do you have a way to cross into the spirit world?”

“Not that one, no.” Loki frowned. “But it shouldn’t be that hard to recruit somebody who can. I’ll be back.”

And he vanished.

I glanced at Kanesha. “I’m guessing Coyote’s already there.”

“Because waiting for us…”

“If he doesn’t think he needs us, then he won’t.” I shrugged. “I’m getting bad for that too. Don’t let me?”

“I promise.”

I hoped…no. That dark thought had to be chased away and put where it belonged. “Alright. So, Loki’s gone to find us a spirit.”

“Probably somebody he slept with.”

I laughed. “Probably.” I wasn’t anywhere near as uncomfortable with that as I had once been. “Anyway. So, we find Brother Death and talk to him about Aso.”

“Maybe we’re wrong and she’s just so quiet nobody can see her behind her husband.”

I grinned. “That wouldn’t surprise me that much. I mean, being married to the ultimate storyteller you’d either have to try and keep up or just be…you know…”

“Happy to be in his shadow.”

But the possibility had to be pursued and, besides, if we could rescue Brother Death… “Just be aware, if we pull him out…”

“…then Anansi will do whatever he can to get him back, and if he’s that powerful.”

I nodded. “Right. He’ll come after us.”

And then Loki showed back up. He hadn’t taken long, but there was an owl on his shoulder.

I still thought it was probably somebody he slept with.

“This is going to be dangerous,” he said, grimly. “Absolutely, under no circumstances, leave the path.”

And his eyes rested on Kanesha. It looked like he was going to say something else, but then he didn’t.

Worried the mortal would get lost? Probably.

I knew exactly why I wanted Kanesha in the council of war.

“I’ve been doing research,” she said right away while Loki paced back and forth. There was no sign of the old dog, yet.

“Okay.”

“First of all, we can’t seriously hurt Anansi. He’s the spirit of all stories. Or at least all stories from west Africa.”

I nodded. “I don’t intend to. If he’s hurt, it will be by absorbing death power.”

“I bet a lot more horror stories are being written this week,” Kanesha mused. “But here’s a thing. He’s married.”

“Aha.” I glanced at Loki.

“Wives,” he grumbled, but he clearly wasn’t too upset.

“Her name is Aso. And that’s absolutely all I know about her.” Kanesha looked apologetic. “If any of my ancestors were Akan…”

“It’s fine. I asked you because you’re the better researcher.” I grinned at her. “So. Aso. If we could find her, maybe she’d help us.”

Loki was still pacing. “Maybe she would, if she thought it was for her husband’s own good.”

“It is,” I said, firmly. “He’s messing himself up with this.”

“It’s worth a try.”

“But like I said.” Kanesha frowned. “The only thing I can find on her is the name. Not what kind of spirit or deity she is, nothing but that she’s Anansi’s wife and the mother of his children. Or at least of some of them.”

Gods weren’t exactly known for fidelity. Except my mother. I frowned a little bit. “Alright. Do you know somebody who might know more?”

“I asked the guy who collects Anansi stories. That’s all he’s ever been able to find too.”

“Interesting,” Loki mused. “She’s either utterly unimportant or very powerful.”

“I think it might be the latter. See, Anansi used to be a creator god. He kind of got demoted.”

“But he’s more interested in destroying death than getting back to the top of his pantheon?”

Kanesha nodded. “Makes you wonder who…” She tailed off. “There’s nothing we can find about her.”

“Oh dear.” I glanced at Loki.

Very softly, “I would take down the barriers between the Nine Realms for her.”

I knew he spoke the truth. He would cheat on my mother, he would drive her nuts, but he still loved her.

We could be wrong, but if so…

“We need to find where he’s keeping Brother Death. He would know, right?”

“He would know,” Kanesha agreed.

So? It was back to plan B.

“So, it didn’t work?” Monica asked.

“He said it was a good try. I didn’t really think it would, but I thought he might not notice me right away. And then he tried to capture me.”

“Oops.”

“So he could use me as bait to try and lure in Hel. It wouldn’t work. He’d get Loki.”

Monica laughed. “Well, that might be a good thing.”

“Not as long as he has the artifact.” I let out a breath. I didn’t share with her about the fire. I didn’t want to think about it, let alone talk about it.

“I’d think Loki…”

I shook my head. “Anansi’s more powerful than Loki.” I said it softly. “He’s older. I think he’s very old, I think he’s one of the primal deities the first humans worshipped.”

“The one who cheats death. The one who might share with a hunter some of that knowledge.”

That didn’t sound like Monica. It almost sounded like Hunin, but I decided not to bring that up right now. “Exactly. And now he wants to cheat death for everyone and prevent Ragnarok forever.”

“That’s kind of seductive.”

Especially for the woman who still wasn’t sure she wasn’t going to somehow cause it. Suddenly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk to her or to anyone, but I couldn’t be rude after what she’d done. “I think I do need to chat with my dad, though.”

Monica grinned. “No offense, but…”

“It’s fine. I won’t draw his attention here.” I grinned at her, handed her the wig she’d loaned me and ducked out.

A primal deity. Maybe Kanesha was…but could I…no. It wasn’t a matter of whether I could trust her with the offer he’d given, but whether she could trust herself. She was an adult. She could make her own decisions.

Starting to grow up, are we? He’d wanted to try and get me to ask, I suspected. To hold me longer, in the hope he could snag me.

“Hey, dad,” I whispered, then started walking.

He was next to me within half a block. “Nice try with the physical disguise. Works on dwarves.”

I grinned. “You mean you didn’t use magic to put Thor in a dress?”

“No, where would be the fun in that? It was much more fun watching him wrestle with the bodice.” He grinned.

I laughed, but a bit weakly. “I think Anansi wants to kidnap all of the death gods.”

“Let him go for Persephone next. She’d kick his butt,” Loki suggested.

“Until he allies with her mother. After all, if he gets what he wants…” I knew enough of the story to suspect that…

“Which is not what Persephone wants, not these days anyway.” He grinned. “Queen of the Underworld is more fun than hanging out as a perpetual child.”

“Anansi said I was growing up.”

Loki studied me. “Yes. Yes, I think you are.”

“We need to get that artifact away from him and toss it into Mount Doom or whatever.”

“I thought you…”

“Wanted it to use on Surtur? I kind of do, but now I’m thinking it’s too dangerous. Plus, I don’t want Surtur’s power.”

He grinned. “Well, let’s see if we can rope in Coyote and come up with a plan.”

“After Coyote’s last plan. Do you know if that was actually Lucifer?”

“Nah, it was Anansi faking it. He’s good at teleporting people, but fortunately he has to know exactly where you are.”

I resolved to make sure he didn’t have that information. “Then why didn’t he teleport me into a cell instead of trying to get the ghosts to grab me.”

“I don’t know.”

That admission from Loki was always a little bit disconcerting.

“Nice try. Very nice disguise,” he said before I could get close.

“You know I have to try.” He wanted me to stop him. I was more and more sure of that.

“Come here.”

He couldn’t compel me. He couldn’t force me. But if he had the artifact… I stayed where I was. “I’m not stupid.”

Why wasn’t he trying to use it on me? Probably because he really did have to have control over the person.

Or… I smiled slightly. “Not stupid at all.”

“Not with your parentage, no. Why not join me?”

“Because I can see what it’s doing to you.”

I had to get out of here. I’d failed, and if he tricked me into sticking around.

“It’s worth it. It’s worth it to give them this freedom. Even to give it to you, Asgardian.”

I closed my eyes. Opened them. “When the cycle comes to an end…”

“It doesn’t have to. Don’t you see? Ragnarok would never happen.”

Then I knew what he wanted of me. “It’s not just humans that have lifespans, Anansi. It’s gods. Planets. Stars. The vast array of the universe itself. One day the world must die so the new world can be born. It’s about making space.”

“And becoming like these?” He indicated the ghosts.

“No.”

I had to get out of here before he did try to get out of me what he wanted. He couldn’t defeat death with just one death god in his grip.

He wanted my sister. Who had more sense than to come after me.

My father would, though. I felt the flickering of flame within him.

“Take her,” he told the ghosts.

For the first time, deliberately, I let it out. The ghosts recoiled. “I don’t think so.”

“Starting to grow up, are we?”

I shrugged, and turned to walk away. None of them came anywhere close to me. The flickering aura of flame surrounded me.

I didn’t turn it off until I was well out of there, and I was shaking. Starting to grow up?

What was I turning into? If I could remember, maybe I would know, but right now? Right now I feared I was becoming something like Surtur.

By the time Monica had finished with me I didn’t recognize myself. I had short red hair in a pixie cut, brown eyes from stage contacts she warned me not to keep in for too long, and was wearing a black minidress that barely covered what it needed to. Oh, and long high heeled boots.

I had to move now, while I had the disguise. I had to hope Anansi wouldn’t simply smell me anyway.

He was a trickster. He might respect what I was trying to do. Or maybe he was even hoping, somehow, that I’d stop him before things went too far. Sometimes people wanted to get caught.

A small voice noted he might want a kiss, which I shook out of my head. I wasn’t sure where it had come from, and I wasn’t kissing anyone except Kanesha. But then, from what I’d seen of tricksters.

Okay. Where was he? I needed help finding him, and I closed my eyes.
A raven swooped overhead. “Hello, Hunin.”

He didn’t say anything, though. He kept flying. The fact that he’d seen right through my disguise was worrying, though. Even if I’d called him.

But he knew where Anansi was, and now I realized so did I.

I could feel the energy, the death energy, and it was tugging at me, draining me.

He wasn’t going to make everyone immortal at this rate. Just the opposite. He was going to end the world, drain everyone into spirits.

Drain everyone, and I shivered, but Hunin was gone, once I’d clued in.

I had to not be noticed, but that meant acting like a mortal. I could use no magic.

None. Not even the magic I used to not be noticed. I pulled my arms together and walked down the street, shivering, putting the best look of terror on my face I could manage. Doing my best to look lost.

“Hey.”
A soft voice. I glanced over, hoping it wasn’t some well wisher I’d have to get rid of.

It was a ghost, but this one smiled at me. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I tried to hurry away from it…from him…from that concern. It meant I was doing this well.

Was I actually not using magic? I realized I couldn’t be sure.

Loki would either be proud or disappointed.
And there he was. Anansi. He was sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, a king in a court of ghosts.

Getting used to this, perhaps. Getting used to having power over the dead. He didn’t feel the same, somehow.

And I knew exactly what was going on. But I still had to get the artifact.

That was going to be tough. Loki was still refusing to teach me shapeshifting. I was good at glamors, but fooling Anansi?

Which meant I had to resort to something else. I found Monica at her apartment. She had the door locked and triple bolted and was shivering. “I can’t keep them out.”

“I’ll call a witch for you, see if we can set up wards.”

“And I know…I know how they died. All of them.”

Maybe this was a bad idea. “Monica. I need your help. To end this.”

“Me?”

“You. And I don’t need you to talk to ghosts or read their minds. I promise.” A pause. “Also, have a brownie.”

“The lethal kind?”

I nodded, but she took one anyway, munching on it as if it was the medication to cure all of her ills.

“Okay. I need you to make me look as completely different as possible.”

“I thought you could just…” She snapped her fingers.

“I can, but that’s not going to fool the person I need to fool. He won’t be expecting me to do it without magic.”

Monica grinned. “Let me guess, gods always assume people aren’t going to do things mundanely.”

“That’s how Thor in drag got past.” I grinned a bit, but it was weak. It was good to see a better expression on her face.

“Thor in…oh, wait.”

“Yeah, he was disguised as Freya. I’m pretty sure Loki just used makeup.”

Monica nodded. “Well…I don’t think we want to just use makeup. Come into the bedroom.”

In the bedroom I saw a dress form, empty, and several wig heads.

“Let’s see here. It’s always better to use a wig if you can. This is a lace front – they’re more expensive but also more effective.”

“The kind actresses use?”

“Well, yes, except a lot of actresses are clean shaven or have a buzz cut underneath. Hiding your hair’s going to be a little more challenging, but he won’t be expecting short hair.”

He wouldn’t. Especially as I was pretty sure short hair was utterly unfashionable in Asgard, and not just for women.

“And…the rest will be makeup. And clothes. We’re close to the same size, at least…”

Loki would be better equipped for this, but there was no sign of him. He was probably running damage control. Everyone was running damage control.

I saw a pair of angels, rather more out in the open than normal, chasing down something I suspected had escaped from Hell. Patrolling for trouble was the only thing I could think of to do, the only possible way to keep myself busy while I found a solution.

If Anansi had had the artifact with him, then it hadn’t been visible. Or it was one of those things that could take whatever form the person holding it had wanted.

Freya wanted it destroyed. Loki wanted it destroyed.

I wanted to use it, but I suspected I was wrong. As long as it existed…

I rounded a corner and almost walked into Zaid. Maybe he’d have some idea. “Zaid.”

“Any…”

“I talked to him. He tried to bribe me.”

Zaid shrugged. “Of course he did. But he plans…”

“He wants to make everyone immortal. He doesn’t seem willing to acknowledge that might remotely be a bad idea.”

“It’s a terrible idea.”

“He called me a child when I pointed it out.” I studied Zaid. “Your crowd have any bright ideas?”

“My boss asked me to help keep the peace.”

I moved to walk further and Zaid naturally fell in next to me.

“Which means he doesn’t have a brilliant idea either, doesn’t it.”

“No. Anubis might, though.”

Anubis might well. “I think we have to…” A pause. “I’m going about this wrong. I was thinking of stealing the artifact from Anansi, but it might be better to first look and see where he’s stashed Brother Death.”

“Hrm.”

“When Tyz’vel was using it he had Loki prisoner. I think you have to have some level of control over whoever you’re siphoning it from.”

Zaid made the same sound again.

“So…rescuing Brother Death…”

“…would only leave him with the artifact ready to grab him again or somebody else.”

I nodded. “It would, but…hrm. I’m not…”

“You can do it,” Zaid noted. “But he suspects you.”

“Then I’ll have to be somebody else.”

The ghosts came back by the time we made it to Mike’s place. “Thea? Mike?”

Mike opened the door. “Thea’s not here. She went tearing off…there are apparently ghosts everywhere.”

“There are.”
And as a chooser of the slain, Thruor had her own connection to death and things that were supposed to be dead. She was probably trying to put things back.

That also explained Freya’s interest. “I need to talk to somebody.”

Mike nodded. “What can I do?”
“Would you and Kanesha mind going on patrol? Looking out for freaked out people?”

Kanesha grinned at me. “I can do that.”
She didn’t see it as me getting rid of her. Which it really wasn’t. Freya was trying to get my attention, I was sure of it.

The two of them left, Mike shooting a glance over his shoulder. “I’ll track you down once I’ve talked to her.”

I went into the house. I still had a key…Mike did trust me to that degree, at least.

I headed straight for the kitchen and raided the fridge. Apple juice, cheese, crackers.

The moment I had it out, the knock came on the door. I opened it, and she stepped in, looking much more grim than the first time I had seen her.

“Anansi.”

She nodded. “My warriors are incapacitated.”

“I sent Mike and Kanesha on patrol. The Valkyries are…”

“…trying to fix things. The artifact that was stolen. I tried to destroy it,” she said, simply. A pause. “Loki didn’t steal it.”

“He didn’t?”

“He was trying to find a way to get rid of it for good.”
And got careless. I frowned, then nodded. “And he didn’t find anything.”

“No, he didn’t. I now wonder if it might not be better to…” She frowned.

“If I come up with a way, I will…but…”

“You want to use it.”

I nodded. “I thought if we used it on Surtur.”

“You would end up with his fire powers, and he would be weakened.”

“But now I’m remembering that if I kill him they might try to make me queen of Muspelheim.”

Freya laughed ringingly. “A truly frightening fate.”

“But…but I already do have fire power.”

She nodded. “You have some fire giant in you. And some frost giant. It’s not surprising one or the other would manifest.”

“If that’s all it is…” Then I didn’t have to worry. “But I feel…inhibited from using it. Maybe it’s just that I associate it with the guy who wants to seduce me.”

“Maybe.” She studied me. “We have more important things to worry about. Hel’s trying to strengthen the boundary and she’s spoken to Hades. It’s also after the solstice, which helps on that front.”

“It’s Halloween,” I noted.

“Not a coincidence. The time death is already weakest.”

So, Anansi had planned that part of it. But I knew what she meant about it being after the equinox. Persephone was with Hades, and I had a feeling she was the scary one of the two. “I plan on stealing the artifact back from Anansi.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. Yet.”