I tried not to worry too much about it. Of course, maybe he did want us looking hard into what he was doing.

Otherwise why show up at all? But on the balance of it, I was pretty sure Kanesha was right.

I tracked down Zaid.

“Have fun raiding Hell?”

I laughed. “I did eventually. Did you know what Kanesha was up to?”

They looked so innocent I was pretty sure they had known, yes. “At least there aren’t random angels and demons chasing each other around any more.”

“I missed that,” I noted ruefully.

“I stayed out of their way. It’s really not good to…”

“…mess with infernal politics. I know.” I elected not to tell Zaid just exactly how Tyz’vel had caught Loki. “But when they mess with me.”

“Still. It’s over, right?”

I shook my head. “Anansi.”

“Oh, what’s the spider up to?”

“I don’t know, but he managed to get his hands on something Tyz’vel stole from Loki who stole it from Odin.”

“Oh dear.”

“I figured you might want to warn your boss. He’s got an artifact that can be used to drain power from gods.”

“Then I know who his target is, most likely. His old enemy. Brother Death.”

“That’s bad. I mean, if he drains power from Death…”

“That could be bad.” Zaid frowned. “I’ll talk to my boss.”

Draining power from Death. That could lead to all kinds of things. “Thanks. And now I’ve thought about it…”

No. Odin would already have thought about it. But I hadn’t.

With power from Death you could kill, but I knew somehow that wasn’t what Anansi had in mind.

And I knew, suddenly, who I needed to talk to. I just wasn’t sure how. Or how much time we had before Anansi managed to catch Brother Death.

It was my business if it…no. It was my business because Loki had stolen it in the first place.

It was all his fault, and he was dang well going to help me fix it.