Watching intently, of course, wasn’t achieving anything worthwhile. But before long I saw somebody on the boat. They lifted a hand to me.

Eyes narrowed, I headed for the dock. The entrance was locked, but that wasn’t about to stop somebody with my strength and reflexes. Not caring about the barb wire, I swung myself around it, and walked towards the boat.

“You came.” A male voice.

“You have something which belongs to me. I’m assuming this isn’t social.” I mean, if he’d just wanted to talk, he could have arranged that without pissing me off.

He’d practically gone out of his way to piss me off.

“You’ll get it back. Come aboard.”

I hesitated, then hopped onto the boat. It rocked only slightly – it wasn’t a small boat. “What do you want?”

“To annoy somebody close to you.”

I rolled my eyes. “What, did Loki prank you?” I studied the man. He wasn’t one of us, but Loki had never limited his pranks.

“Loki tried to out-prank me.”

Never limited his pranks, and now I was closer I realized the man was Native American. “Well, you succeeded in annoying me, and nope, not going to be involved in a war between you.”

He laughed. “You mean you don’t think it’s fun?”

“Not when you stole my stuff.”

He reached into the cabin and offered me my sword, hilt first. “Borrowed.”

“Stole.” I took it, nonetheless, and was tempted to draw it and stop the stroke just short of his neck. The only reason I didn’t was because I was pretty sure this wasn’t somebody who would be particularly inconvenienced by decapitation. “You could just have asked, you know. I might have been up for teasing him a bit.”

He offered me my gun, then headed into the cabin.

I followed. The boat looked like it belonged to somebody who routinely found a million dollars in his couch. My laptop was sitting on one of the tables, looking battered, next to the horn.

“I wasn’t sure how else to get your attention.”

“You’re lucky I haven’t pushed you in the harbor. What, you want him to think you’re messing with me?”

He grinned. “No. I want him to think I kidnapped you.”

“Hey! You know, I could shoot you. I know it would only be irritating, but I could.”

Presumably there was a crew on the boat, because it was already moving. I could swim to shore.

“But you won’t, because you’re way curious what he did.”

“My girlfriend will come after us.”

He laughed. “That would be entertaining.”

“If you hurt her I will find a way to send you back to the spirit world for a century or so, Coyote.” I hoped I hadn’t missed my guess. But that laugh definitely had fangs in it.

“And what if I show her a good time?”

If we’d been on the deck I would have pushed him in.