In fact, we got several people offering to buy us illegal drinks, which I turned down. If I wanted alcohol, I could get it from Thruor’s stash later.

“I figured I’d let you deal with him,” I said as we left, arm in arm, Thruor (without the guy she’d been drinking with) behind us.

“You didn’t want to break him.”

I laughed. “No, I didn’t. Or do anything that, you know, gave me away.” Which was important, I’d decided.

Best to keep things on the down low around the mundanes.

Thruor grinned. “He deserved it for grabbing, but I didn’t hear what he said.”

Kanesha made a sour face. “He wanted to watch.”

“Oh. One of those. All female sexuality exists for the pleasure of men.”

She was right that a lot of men thought that way, I mused. “Uh oh,” I said, abruptly.

“What?”

“Under the lamp post.”

It was the stick, spider-like figure of Anansi. Who had something that could drain energy from gods.

“A spider.”

“Let’s not rush into the idea of stomping him.” I didn’t yet think we had reason. I just didn’t trust a trickster with something like that.

I trusted Loki marginally more. He probably would just dye Odin’s beard rainbow colored.

Anansi saluted me. “Trickster’s Daughter.”

“I try not to just be anyone’s daughter,” I informed him, glancing at Kanesha.

He turned to her. “And you. If you weren’t taken…”

Kanesha grinned. “You’d have to grow a set of breasts to interest me.”

I pointed out, amused, “He probably could. Loki can.”

Anansi laughed a bit. “Maybe the valkyrie, then?”

“No can do,” Thruor said, folding her arms. “I’m a one lover at a time kind of girl.”

“Shame.” He didn’t sound that serious, though. Almost as if he was going through the motions.

“I know what you took from Hell,” I said, quietly.

“Oh. Worried what I might do with it?” His left shoulder, spindly, lifted towards his ear.

“Maybe. I think I’d be happier if it was back in a vault in Asgard.”

“You mean the one Loki stole it from.”

He was probably speaking the truth. That would certainly explain how it had got in Hell in the first place…

“Yeah. Or maybe one with an extra lock on it.”

“He’d just steal it again and use it to play pranks. Why are you worried? I only plan on giving a few gods a hard time, and you aren’t one of them.”

“I guess I don’t want it falling back into the hands of something evil, like Lucifer or Apep.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll look after it, and when I’m tired of it?” He grinned and did a back flip down the street, followed by another, until he was out of sight.

“That’s a god who doesn’t want us looking too hard into what he’s doing,” Kanesha said.

I nodded. As usual, she was right.