“Or Cronus will kill you as well and put me on a rhinestone leash like a poodle for the rest of eternity. Let us not ignore that possibility.” He straightened and pulled his hair back in a strict, martial ponytail. “Which is the least of what he could do if he’s irritated with our presumption.”
“Yes, but while I was born curious, you were born presumptuous. Plus wicked and more than mildly immoral.” In the bad days, Leo would’ve done this just for the hell of it, but I wouldn’t point that out. I was comfortable manipulating the majority of the world, but never Leo. I would ask—but I wouldn’t push. This was, like he’d said, our lives on the line, and while I was ready to risk mine for my calling, I wasn’t ready to risk his for him. I walked to the bar, framed his face, and kissed his forehead. “I would be perfectly happy with you inviting him here and then leaving. Fly far away on those raven wings of yours. I’ll talk to Cronus. I’ll do it alone and I’ll be fine.” Before he could protest, I asked firmly, “When have I ever not been fine in the line of duty?”
He exhaled. “Only when you refuse to see how vulnerable you can be, even at your best, and, yes, I know how very good your best can be.” Pulling the sun necklace out from under my T-shirt, he arranged it in place to the right of my heart. “I’ll make some calls to those who can do more than use only Verizon now. Being human or a raven isn’t much help in finding a Titan, but I’ll see if I can get some assistance from those who happen to be getting a good laugh at my expense now. I hope you appreciate that. Risking death and derision all in one.”
For the former Loki, risking death was a walk in the park; risking derision was a sacrifice for which there wasn’t enough gratitude in the world.
“And,” he added, “we might be being presumptuous already. Just because Cronus has only gone after demons, wants a map to Lucifer, doesn’t mean this is all necessarily only about Hell. With Cronus, you can’t assume. He’s pa?en, but so am I. History knows what I tried to do, and on a smaller scale that all pa?en aren’t at peace and love with one another.”
It didn’t get much truer than that. “Which is why we really do need to talk to him. If it’s only Hell and Lucifer he has a problem with, then I’ll join his cheering section. I’ll wave pom-poms, do the splits. Rah-rah-sis-boom-bah.”
“And if he has a problem with some fellow pa?en, you think he’ll tell us?”
“Why wouldn’t he? He would think there was nothing we could do about it and he would probably be right.”
“But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t try,” Leo exhaled. “Does being a born trickster make the suicidal behavior more prevalent? Because as it’s only my hobby, I don’t tend to want to happily rush into death quite as often or quickly as you. I don’t enjoy seeing you do it either, not in our current mortal situation.”
“It’s what I do.” I walked behind the bar and re-braided his hair from the ponytail for him, not as tightly or neatly as he would’ve done himself, but close. “It’s what you do too, although you won’t brag on it. You should. You deserve it. Don’t be ashamed. Being righteous and being wicked aren’t mutually exclusive.” I grinned and headed for the stairs. “I’ll shower and change and be right back. Maybe we’ll close up early tonight. Have dinner with Griffin and Zeke. They’ll be needing a distraction. Going demon-free cold turkey will be driving Zeke crazy.”
“And dinner will fix that?” He was back to skeptical again.
“You think too big sometimes, Leo. The little things in life can be just as much fun.”
After all, demons weren’t the only ones who gave Vegas a bad name.
“I thought we were going to eat?” Zeke complained.
“And we will, but we’re going to have some fun first.” I reached back and patted his knee. He was wedged in the back, using the two tiny seats as one. As his knees were rammed up close to his chin, I counted myself lucky he didn’t snap at my hand when I patted. Griffin, who had won the coin toss, was in the passenger seat, and Leo . . . Leo was currently driving out of the city in his own car with a rental U-Haul attached. That was for fun too, but a little later.
“This thing is so small it should run on triple-A batteries,” Griffin commented, on the part of Zeke since the car was not small. It was perfect. It simply wasn’t made for a full-sized man to be shoved into the back. But too bad for them both. It was new, I loved it, and I was going to drive it.
“It’s a Shelby Cobra. Have some respect. Triple-A batteries can’t get you to one hundred and eighty-five miles per hour and this baby can.” I pulled on my gloves—hunting gloves, silk for easier trigger pulling.
“It can go that fast?” Zeke, as always, was skeptical.
“When I’m driving it, Kit, it can fucking fly. Speaking of flying, while we’re on the way to the sports store, tell me if you guys have gone out to the desert to practice? If you whip out your wings in a battle, you need to be able to use them.”