Hour of Mischief

by Aimee Hyndman

  “No joke.” I looked down at my mangled steel wrist. “But Cambiare has remained empty all this time? Why did you never repopulate it? Was it in honor of all those who died?”

  “Huh?” Itazura’s eyebrows shot up. “No, no. We just never got around to it again.” He shrugged. “Three human realms are a handful all by themselves. Adding a fourth might kill us. So we let the plants over take the realm. As time passed, ghost stories and rumors sprouted up about the place. Humans are fascinated with researching the empty realm. Quite entertaining to watch them grasp at straws, I must say.”

  “You gods can be sick sometimes, you know that?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “So why are the elder gods using shape shifters to get me?” I asked. “Did Cleptos side with them?”

  “That’s just it.” Itazura frowned. “Cleptos has always been very loyal to Axira. She treated him well, probably better than most of the gods treated their minor counterparts. I can’t see him straying from her.” He stared down at his drink.

  I tensed. “Wait, you don’t think Axira has it out for me do you? Why would she side with the elder gods?”

  “She wouldn’t. It’s not like her.” He shook his head. “No . . . no it has to be the elder gods. I don’t know why but . . . but it has to be.” His voice had turned soft, confused even. It sounded as if Axira coming after me would be worse than the wrath of the elder gods. I knew Axira wasn’t a walk around the clock but she had to be better than the world-destroying rulers of the ancient past.

  Itazura’s face remained somber for a moment before it snapped suddenly back into his usual mischievous guise. “But, maybe I’m just reading too much into things. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

  “I’m not reassured.” I reclined back on the couch, letting my left arm hang limply by my side. I tried to flex my fingers again but the hand only jerked feebly with a soft crackle of energy. “Think he’ll come back for me?”

  “Oh, I know he’ll come back for you,” Itazura said. “Didn’t you hear what he said?” His expression melted into the chilling dead stare resembling that of the red-eyed shape shifter. “‘I’ll be seeing you soon, girl.’” He raised an eyebrow. “Sound like a sign of surrender to you?”

  “Guess not.”

  “Exactly,” Itazura said. “Which is why I’m not letting you out of my sight until this pact is complete. I’m not going to risk a possible fall from the clock face like that again.”

  I blinked. “You mean . . . I have to stay in your line of sight for . . . gods know how long?”

  “Yes,” Itazura said. “And the gods don’t know how long. Except for maybe the old Clockmaker.”

  I groaned, throwing my head back. “Damn it. I don’t want to be stuck next to you every hour of the day.”

  “Perhaps you’d rather be dead then,” Itazura said. “Come on, little human, that’s no way to treat the god who saved your life.” He paused. “Actually, it’s no way to treat a god at all. You just have no respect.”

  “You want respect, maybe you should command some,” I quipped.

  Itazura’s mouth twitched. He fingered one of the pocket watches hanging from a loop on his jacket. I’d seen him play with that particular watch several times. It was a pretty gold trinket, but the clock face was chipped. Why would he keep a broken pocket watch?

  “I meant to tell you,” Itazura said. “I’m sorry about what happened earlier. With Meroquio.”

  I stared at him. I didn’t expect the god to give a damn about my emotional quandaries with the situation when the world was on the line. “You . . . are?”

  “Yes.” Itazura looked up at me. “You’re right, I’m a god. I don’t understand a lot of things about being human. Human problems often look . . . very small to us.” He slipped the broken pocket watch back into his jacket. “But there are some things I shouldn’t expect of you. So yes, I am sorry.”

  I nodded once. “Um . . .apology accepted.” I tugged at a piece of my hair. “It’s not like I expected a god to understand anyway. You’ve seen so much of humans, even their biggest issues must seem small to you by now.” I sighed. “Anyway, you saved my life. Let’s call it even for the day.”

  “That sounds fair,” Itazura said, relaxing a bit. “Thank you.”

  “For what?” I asked.

  “Not still being angry with me.” Itazura grinned. “You’re very difficult to deal with when you’re angry.”

  “Oh, ha ha.” I closed my eyes. “Can you at least leave me alone enough to get some sleep?”

  “No,” he said. I opened one eye to glare at him and he held up his hands in a placating way. “But I’ll be quiet for you. Get some sleep, little human. You need it.” He rose from his seat and retreated to the opposite corner of the room. “Sleep tight.”

  “That doesn’t sound like quiet to me,” I mumbled, though I had already begun to drift off. The last thing I heard was Itazura chuckling before I went out like a light.

  Laetatia was upset about the dress when she found it the next morning. Not godly wrath upset, but definitely irritated.

  “That’s what I get for lending out clothing to a human,” she muttered, holding up the blood-stained gown in front of her. “This is one of my favorites. I love my red dresses.”

  “Well, it’s just blood,” Itazura pointed out, peering at the garment over her shoulder. “Blood is red. It should be fine.”

  Laetatia wacked Itazura over the head with the ruined garment. “They’re different shades of red, you idiot.”

  “All right, all right, they’re different shades. Don’t get your gears in a jam.” Itazura held up his hands in surrender.

  “I am sorry about that,” I said, fiddling with the twisted remains of my left wrist. “I didn’t want to ruin your clothes. But, you know, evil shape shifter assassins aren’t great for formal wear.”

  “Ah, don’t worry about it.” Laetatia sighed. “I’m a goddess. I can have another one made easily. But you should have used the coin.”

  “I couldn’t find it in the heat of the moment.” I tapped the coin that now sat atop the private bar. “It’s a tiny bastard. And that dress had a lot of folds.”

  “True,” Laetatia said. “The only important thing is you’re alive.” She shot a glare at Itazura. “Of course, what happened last night just proves Itazura’s idiocy when he made that pact with you.”

  “I agree,” I plopped back onto the couch. “So, Laetatia, what do you think about the circumstances? Do you think Axira would actually betray the gods?”

  “Don’t know,” Laetatia said, pouring herself a drink at the private bar. “Of all the gods, I probably associate with Axira the least. Death and festivities just don’t click, if you know what I mean.” She sighed.

  “But if I know two things about my sister, it’s that she’s clever and she’s powerful. She has an entire realm to herself after all, and it makes sense for the elder gods to start their attack from the bottom and work their way up. She may have decided we have little chance for survival so she cut her losses. Which doesn’t bode very well.” Laetatia tipped back her drink, draining it one gulp. “If Axira has turned to the elder gods, then we’re in bad shape.”

  “Maybe they’re manipulating her,” I suggested.

  Itazura and Laetatia exchanged a nervous smile.

  “Well. . . .”

  “What?” I raised an eyebrow. “They could be.”

  “Here’s the thing about our sister, little human.” Itazura traced his finger along the edge of the bar. “Axira does the manipulating. She’s no one’s puppet and no one in their right mind would mess with her. Except me of course.”

  “Since when are you in your right mind?” Laetatia and I asked in unison.

  Itazura blinked. “You two are becoming much too similar.”

  “Nice one, Janet.” Laetatia winked and I grinned. I didn’t mind being compared to the Goddess of Festivities. Laetatia was probably the most amazing person/god I’d ever met.

  �
�Well.” Itazura clapped his hands together, looking satisfyingly irritated by our comments.

  I didn’t blame him, of course. We’d been at this kind of verbal abuse all morning.

  “I would love to stay around for more insults but don’t you need your arm repaired before we can continue, little human?”

  “Yeah.” I vaulted to my feet. “The sooner the better too. I don’t want to run into that shape shifter again with only one working arm.”

  “Well, we’ll continue the insulting later,” Laetatia promised. “Keep them up will you?”

  “No problem.” I gave her a thumbs up.

  “I’m not sure I like this team up,” Itazura muttered.

  “Deal with it,” we replied in unison.

  y mechanic lived on the outer rim of the middle ring in a ramshackle, tin house that sat in plain view of the slums. It was a large place for most outer ring dwellings, but small for someone who lived in the middle ring. Still, the rickety exterior only acted as a cover. That tin shack housed a factory of machinery and all sorts of amazing gadgets. I could spend all day browsing and never get bored.

  “Not much of a house,” Itazura mused. “You know I could use some of my godly pull to get you a good mechanic.”

  “This guy is a good mechanic,” I said, knocking on the door. Carved in the surface was the hammer of Artifex, the sign of the God of Craftsmen and all those who paid tribute to him. “Best there is in my opinion. And besides, I’ve got some pull of my own here. This mechanic gives me all my repairs absolutely free.”

  “Did you threaten his family?”

  “Ha, ha.”

  I knocked again, and this time a familiar voice came from behind the door.

  “Coming, coming. So sorry.”

  The door opened to reveal the always oil-stained Grant Peterson. He held a greasy wrench in one hand and a blackened cloth in the other. His hair stuck up at odd angles as it usually did and his dark-skinned face was beaded with sweat from hours concentrating on his work. As soon as he saw me, a grin split his face.

  “Janet! Nice to see you drop by. And who’s your friend?” He spied Itazura over my shoulder. “Oh, how rude of me. I should have let you inside first before asking prying questions. Come in. Come in.” He opened the door wider to allow us entrance.

  “Asking my name is a prying question?” Itazura asked under his breath. I elbowed him in the side, hoping he would take that as a sign to shut up.

  Then again, he didn’t even take the words “shut up” to mean shut up, but I could dream.

  “It’s been ages since you’ve been by,” Grant said. “I’d been wondering when you were going to drop in for your next checkup.”

  He led us through the mechanical labyrinth of his home. All about the kitchen and living room, strange gadgets whirred and jerked, all performing their own specialized task–washing, building, even cooking. I had to duck under the whirling arm of one malfunctioning device. Did Grant even notice it was broken? Maybe he did, but couldn’t be bothered to fix it. He wasn’t what I’d call an organized mechanic, but if any human came close to Artifex, it was definitely Grant.

  Itazura looked around. “I suppose I know who this man favors.”

  I snorted. “You think?”

  Grant ushered us into his workshop, the nirvana of mechanics, which took up half of the small shack all by itself. He waved his hand at a lumpy, faded green couch shoved in the corner next to an old grandfather clock that always ran an hour too fast. “Go on, sit down.”

  I obeyed but Itazura hovered next to the couch, still observing the workshop with a mixture of awe and greed. I made a mental note to check Itazura’s pockets later. If he stole anything from this place, I would have to kill him.

  “So, here for a tune up?” Grant asked, leaning over his cluttered worktable.

  “Um . . . a little more than that, unfortunately,” I rubbed a hand behind my head, reluctantly raising the remains of my metal arm.

  Grant blinked and stared at the arm as if it were some dead pet. “Good gods, Janet, what did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” I insisted. “I got into a . . . scuffle. My opponent crushed it.”

  “Who’d you fight? A god?” Grant rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Close,” Itazura muttered under his breath. I kicked his foot.

  “No, nothing like that,” I said tightly.

  “Well, please tell me it wasn’t one of my son’s explosions,” Grant said. “Because I know Parker tends to damage everything around him.”

  Itazura shot me a surprised glance and I winced. “No, it wasn’t him.”

  “That’s good,” Grant said, too busy hurrying around the room to notice my pained expression. “Hold on one second. I have to find the plans to your arm. Let’s see. . . .” He opened up a drawer and shuffled through some papers.

  “So how is Parker? He hasn’t been by lately, but then again, he almost never stays at home. Which is just as well since he’s always playing with his explosives. Ah! Found them!” Grant pulled a rolled up piece of parchment from the bottom drawer and placed it on his worktable. He scanned over the design. I couldn’t have understood it if I tried.

  “You know, it figures. I love to build and my son loves to destroy. The Clockmaker has a wicked sense of humor.” Grant gave a little laugh. “If he exists that is.”

  “Yeah,” I murmured. Guilt settled like a lead weight in the pit of my stomach. I could see Parker sitting in the cell with my team, Parker trying to put on a brave face. And worse, Parker smiling and joking in the clock tower only hours before the screwed up heist.

  “All right, I think I can fix this up with no problem,” Grant said. “Hold up your arm again?” I obeyed and he nodded. “Yeah, it looks like just the forearm and wrist are damaged. That’s just a matter of a quick replacement. You’re lucky I have parts already made. We’ll just have to hope one of them fits you.” With these words, he disappeared behind a torn brown curtain leading into his back storeroom, leaving Itazura and I alone in the workshop.

  “So,” Itazura said as soon as Grant was out of earshot. “Your mechanic is the father of one of your team members.”

  “How observant of you,” I muttered, trying to ignore the heat rising to my face, pressing against my cheeks as if it wanted to escape.

  “I see the pull you mentioned,” Itazura said. Either he was ignoring my severe expression or he wanted to push my buttons as usual, because he didn’t drop the subject. “You get special privileges here because of your friend’s dad. The boy put in a good word for you, so you found a mechanic.”

  “No, actually,” I said. “I didn’t use Parker to get in with Grant. I didn’t mean to get in with him at all. I met both of them on the same night.”

  “So, you weren’t in the market for a mechanic then.” Itazura raised an eyebrow.

  “No,” I said, glaring viciously at him. “Because I met them the night I lost my arm. Now will you please shut up?”

  Itazura’s eyebrows shot up and I turned away, picking angrily at the place where my steel shoulder joined with skin. It might have crossed my mind once to apologize to the god, since he was a god and all. But I didn’t care.

  Grant came back into the room, saving us from the tense silence, gripping several long cases under his arms. His muscles bulged from beneath the sleeves of his shirt, but he didn’t buckle under the weight of his load. A lifetime of working with machines made him strong as a water ox.

  “Okay.” Grant set five cases on his worktable. “Let’s see if we’ve got what you need. These are all models roughly the same size as your arm, but you can’t be sure until you see them next to each other.” He motioned for me to come over. “Sit over here so I can fit you.”

  “Sure.” I rose from the couch and went over to sit in the metal reclining chair he reserved for his clients.

  “I never did catch your name, mister,” Grant said as he disconnected my old forearm from my elbow joint. I winced as an electric shock went thr
ough my shoulder, but I kept my cry of pain trapped in my throat.

  “Ivan,” Itazura answered. I stared at him. I’d expected Itazura to say his real name, just to get a kick out of Grant’s expression. I would have been phenomenally angry with him if he had. Maybe he wanted to keep a low profile because of our precarious situation.

  Or maybe he realized I wasn’t in the mood to be messed with.

  I put more stock in with the former answer.

  “Ivan huh? So you’re a friend of Janet’s?” Grant went over to his table to take another look at the forearms.

  “Something along those lines.” Itazura said brightly. I grumbled under my breath but Grant didn’t seem to notice. “I’m just here to make sure her arm gets replaced. It would be bad if she got into another fight with only one arm.”

  “True enough,” Grant said. “But one arm or two, I’m pretty sure Janet would still fight. She’s persistent even if the odds aren’t in favor. Even if her opponent is twice her size.” He traced his oil stained fingers along the edge of his workbench. “Or a burning building.”

  “Burning building?” Itazura raised an eyebrow.

  “H-hey, Mr. Peterson–” I tried to interrupt him to change the topic. Unfortunately, Grant was just as talkative as his son.

  “Oh, yes. She didn’t tell you? Well, she wouldn’t. She doesn’t like to talk about it. But Janet saved my son’s life. Didn’t know us at the time. Just saw the fire and heard he was still trapped inside. Then, bam! She ran into the building.”

  “She didn’t tell me that.” Itazura’s gaze slid to me.

  I looked away, concentrating as hard as I could on my arm.