The Grimrose Path (Trickster, #2)(61)

Words to die by.





Chapter 12


Tricksters are thieves, every last one of us. That was half of the job if you broke it down to the basics. You were either taking something a person wanted or giving them something they didn’t want at all. It was a simplistic look at what we did, but in your life, sooner or later, you were going to steal something—a possession . . . a life. But only the lazy tricksters went for the life off the bat. I was not lazy. Those I tricked had to truly deserve to lose their lives if I took them. I’d said my very first trick had been to steal an entire orchard to punish a greedy man. I’d stolen my bar too. That was more in the range of a good-deed trick. . . . An alcoholic who owns a bar is never going to stay sober, no matter how many meetings he goes to. Not that it was mere convenience that I happened to need an identity and occupation in Vegas at the time—no, that was good planning. Good deeds are nice, but when you can make them pay off doubly, what’s not to love? It was like getting a great dress and matching demon-stabbing stiletto heels, both on sale, only a hundred times the rush.

And being a trickster and a thief meant that you always kept your eyes open. I wouldn’t steal, say, from a museum, but there were those who would. You steal from a museum, you steal from the world. If you did that, I would punish you, because that was naughty—depriving the world. Unless you were a trickster and you were stealing something to save the world.

I hadn’t stolen from a museum yet, but I, bad girl that I was, kept hoping a justifiable reason would come up.

It was while keeping my eyes open several months ago that I saw a special on an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. I’d been about to change the channel to sports for the customers—I mean, I was a living history and while I did embrace the entire keeping-an-eye-out philosophy, just hearing the words New York City still gave me a twinge of a hangover. I’d had the remote in hand when Zeke went to point like a hungry hound on a package of hot dogs. WEAPONS OF THE WORLD had been emblazoned across the screen. Zeke did love his weapons to, what I’d been beginning to suspect was, an unhealthy degree. I’d been relieved for more than one reason when he got a sex life that didn’t involve a trip to the gun shop.

I’d ignored the phantom hangover pain, made popcorn, and we’d watched. An occupied Zeke was a nondestructive Zeke. In the exhibit, along with a varying degree of implements designed by man to kill man, was a representation of a something not designed by man. Or woman or any creature primate related at all. It was Namaru. There had been two races long ago, pa?en, that had never made it into human mythology or folklore, spoken or written. They had tended to keep to themselves although one of them had ties to the Rom. These races were the engineers of the pa?en population. They had a technology that would seem like magic to humans, who wouldn’t have had a hope of understanding it. I didn’t actually understand it myself. No one who hadn’t created it would. I’d seen the objects that they’d built though, the Bassa and the Namaru. I’d seen them work and that was good enough for me. The Bassa, a cold-blooded reptile race, had worked with metal most often. The Namaru, who’d lived in active lava fields like grounded phoenixes, had used what looked like stone, but did what stone couldn’t begin to do. They were gone now, extinct and remembered only by the pa?en, but they had left things behind.

I’d recognized in that museum the result of the only weapon mold the Namaru had ever made—or an homage to that result rather. Mj?llnir, Thor’s hammer—a stone sculpture of it. It was ornate and there was something slightly odd about the short handle, the intricate carving. Whoever had crafted the replica long ago had seen the real thing. It was otherworldly, like the Namaru. They had lived in this world, but the way they thought, what they were, to a human would be alien, and, like Cronus, inexplicable.

The first human swords had been Bronze Age and made using clay molds. After that, methods had been refined and humans came up with many ways to make all different types of weapons to kill one another. The Namaru, in their genius and simplicity, had only ever needed the one. It could shift itself to the shape of any weapon you wanted to make. Leo had chosen a hammer. I’d never seen the mold myself, but Leo as Loki had since he’d given Mj?llnir as a gift to Thor—there was a legend regarding that involving dwarven blacksmiths, betting his head, and turning into a fly, but basically it was all bullshit. Humans loved to weave elaborate tales around something as simple as, hey, dude, happy birthday. Storytellers and liars, I did respect them for that, and I absolutely loved a good story, no matter how fictional.

But why, back in reality, had Loki, who at that time was bad to the bone and then some, done something nice for a relative he didn’t much care for? I had a feeling it was a softening-up move. Thor wasn’t bright. Hell, Thor wasn’t even dim. He’d need one of his own lightning bolts up his ass to get that kind of wattage going between his ears. It all ended up with Leo/Loki laughing while Thor wondered how he’d ended up in drag at a banquet. Wide shoulders, an Adam’s apple, and a drunken deep bass voice—it all ended in a vale of tears and one drunkenly confused Thor fighting off a bunch of pissed-off giants.

Born dumb frat boy. Born victim of Loki.

That might explain the drunken rants in the middle of the night, but Leo had said much later when he was on the straight and narrow, he’d given the weapon mold to Thor in a manly “Sorry, I was a dick and tricked you into dressing like a girl” apology. The sculpture in the museum reminded me of it. Sometimes the universe does give you a freebie, and I was hoping Thor still had Leo’s present. I was very much hoping. And since Thor made calls to Leo, but didn’t take them, Leo would have to go ask him in person. Leo had made up, mostly, with his family, Odin, and the whole crew, but there were a few holdouts and Thor was one of them.