Episode Four: Prank War: Scene 19

Confrontation was, of course, bound to happen. I’d already established that talking to them was a waste of time.

Loki…Otter…had refused to tell me who sent them, if he knew. Maybe he didn’t. I didn’t get the impression the gods were omniscient and omnipotent in the Christian sense. Just…powerful and with certain kinds of power that made them gods.

Power over men, perhaps. Power over souls. Valkyries. Taking the souls of dead heroes, and I shivered a bit.

But yeah, confrontation. And it was pinkhair, of course, involved in it. She didn’t start it, mind. I was messing with their heads again, wandering through northwest with no particular destination, except that I did stop and look at a certain pawn store.

The Masonic sword was still there, but I saw nothing else unusual, except that somebody had pawned his trumpet. A jazz player, based off of the fact that the instrument was bright purple in hue. I felt sorry for him…or her.

Which was about the time some schmuck tried to mug pinkhair. I would have stayed out of it, but it was pretty clear she wasn’t going to leave him alive, witnesses or no witnesses.

So, instead, I strode over, inserting myself between the two as he laid on the ground. “Enough. You’ve made your point.”

She scowled. “Protecting a mortal? And a thief to boot?”

“A bad thief. He didn’t know who to pick. But nah, I just don’t believe in random killing in public. It makes a mess somebody has to clean up.”

She snorted. “You’re going soft. Or else native. Pheh. You even look like one of them. That makeup’s awful.”

“Says the woman with pink hair.”

And then, she tried to get through me to get to her victim. I twisted my shoulder into her, feeling the familiar rightness of physical combat. Quite a few people were watching at this point, and I wondered what they saw. A chick fight?

Two women who really knew what they were doing going at each other. She was stronger than I was, but I was faster…and better. And limited. Thea was definitely stronger than a human. I wasn’t, but I didn’t care, I was going to stop her. I twisted my hip and sent her flying over me to the ground.

The mugger managed to pull himself to his feet and flee. I didn’t even bother watching him go. “Okay, I think I’ve made my point.”

“You’re weak. You’re like one of them.”

“And I still put you on the ground. Why don’t you tell that to your boss?”

She spat at me and then ran off. I glanced around at the people watching, giving them my best ‘what are you staring at’ look.

It worked except for one guy who had the look of an off-duty cop. He smirked at me. “She a friend of yours?”

“In her dreams,” I informed him. “But she was going to kill that guy.”

“I thought for a moment you were going to kill her.”

“Nah. Just reminding her that I hit hard.”

“Like a girl,” he said with a grin, and then headed off. I heaved a sigh of relief.

Not arrested. This time, anyway.

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