by Cara Wylde
Loki smiled as he sipped his beer. “I’m proud of you, love. You’re making real progress.”
She looked up at him, and after a moment, her eyes softened. “Thank you for lifting the memory loss spell.”
“Finally, some gratitude!”
Val went back to her notebook. “Then, I also saw a dragon. It might have been before New York. Everything is so jumbled. There was this beggar, too... I think he was in India.”
“You went to India?!” Piper clapped excitedly. “So awesome!”
“I astral projected to India. It’s different. Okay, okay... we’re talking about a Hindu god.” She thought hard for a minute. “He was in this small square, crowded with people, children, and cows. A bridge was to the left, and in the middle of the square was a statue. A blue god.”
“Aren’t all Hindu gods blue?” shrugged Piper. “I once heard this theory that they came from another planet.”
When Loki shot her an incredulous look, Piper shrunk in her seat. Maybe she should stop talking about gods in front of a real god. She wasn’t that good at mythology, anyway. Magny tsked, and she felt even sillier.
“He had a snake around his neck,” Val continued, “black hair, golden tattoos.” She turned to Loki. “Feel free to chime in. I bet you know them all.”
“This is all you, love. It has to be.”
“I can’t believe you won’t when you...”
“I can’t help you, love. Trust me. You’ll understand why soon enough.”
“Don’t you ever get tired of being so cryptic?”
He gave her a wide, mischievous grin. “Never.”
Valentina shuffled uncomfortably. She suddenly felt hot, and her stomach was acting funny. She looked away from Loki’s intense green eyes and focused on the task she’d set for herself.
“Magny!”
The hobgoblin’s long, pointy ears perked up.
“Blue god, golden tattoos, serpent around his neck, sitting in lotus position...”
Bing!
Val, Piper, and even Loki himself jumped at the loud, sharp noise. No one else in the café had heard it though, and Val let out a breath of relief.
“What the hell?!”
Loki stuck out his index finger and opened his mouth to say something, but Val stopped him with a quick gesture. She was staring at Magny, who had jumped with all his might and weight on top of a golden bell that hadn’t been there a second before.
“What’s wrong with you? This isn’t a quiz show.”
“The answer is Shiva,” Magny chirped and binged some more.
Valentina grabbed him by the collar, took the bell from under his bum, and hid it in her backpack.
“Now you,” she said to Loki. “What were you going to say?”
“Hell is not a thing.”
Val gave him a murderous look. “Much obliged,” she said sarcastically. “Now let’s move on.”
“No bell, no play.” The hobgoblin crossed his arms over his chest.
“Hell is not a thing?! What do you mean by that?” Piper was still stuck at Loki’s hell comment. “If hell doesn’t exist, then heaven doesn’t exist either?”
Valentina saw Loki getting ready to launch himself into a long speech and shoved her uneaten sandwich on his empty plate.
“Here, you could eat some more. You’re rather skinny.”
Loki blinked in confusion, then grinned at her and grabbed the sandwich. He knew what she was trying to do, but it was fine. He didn’t necessarily want to explain the concepts of hell and heaven to an Ordinary, nor prove to her that they were bullshit. It would take him years, and by the time he’d be done, Piper would probably be 107 and in a hospital bed, with an IV bag dangling close by. Why had he just had this oddly specific flash? He shrugged and proceeded to eat Val’s sandwich. Ugh! Vegetarian!
“So, we have Shiva,” Val mumbled as she wrote down the name. “No idea who he’s supposed to be, though. I remember Loki, and then... pillows? No, that was much later. I think I got shot.”
“You what?” Piper’s brown eyes widened with worry. “Someone shot you?”
Val shook her head. “No, no, it’s fine. I wasn’t in my physical body, remember? The Test? You don’t take it in your physical body.”
Piper smacked herself over the forehead and nodded.
“He was young, tall, dressed in black... He had blond hair which he wore in, what do you call those things? A man bun? He said he was Death.”
“Great! You got yourself another card,” Magny chirped.
“Yes, but I don’t know the god. How do I rebuild the Death card if I don’t know who goes in it?”
Loki tapped his lips with a napkin.
“For now, focus on what you know. Just write down a description or something.”
“He had black pupils. Like a demon.” Valentina followed Loki’s advice and wrote as many details as she could think of. So far, she had three gods, – Loki, Jupiter, and Shiva, – a thorough description of Death himself, and a vague idea that she might have seen a dragon at some point. Who else? “There was this guy... blond, curly hair, young... I saw him on a stage, and he was giving a talk about... mmm... It was a self-development thing? He was saying how we each have the power to make our own choices and take control of our destiny. He reminded me of someone...”
“Elias Blais?” said Piper.
“Blaze?”
“No, with an ‘s’. I saw his TED Talk. He’s a life coach and wrote a bunch of books. Ian has at least one on his nightstand at all times.”
Val cocked an eyebrow. “Okay...” She pulled out her phone and searched for the name. Elias Blais. There he was, in all his youthful, charming glory! He was the man from Val’s astral trip, the man who didn’t want to look at her, or even talk to her. By far, he was probably the rudest one. Well, except for Death, who’d shot her. She wrote down his name. “I don’t know who he could be, though. I don’t remember what happened. I forced him to look at me, and it was as if a huge sphere of light hit me in the face. I thought I had gone blind.” Her lips curved into a triumphant smile. “Ooooh! He’s the Sun!” Then, she deflated. “But the world is full of sun gods. Next.”
“The Sun as a life coach?” Piper chuckled. “I dig it.”
“It should be easy to find Gideon Jove and Elias Blais,” Val noted. “One is a businessman in NYC, and the other is... well, his face is all over the news, the Internet, and on billboards.” She looked up at Loki, who’d been silent for a while. Her smile fell when she saw sadness swimming in his brilliant eyes. “What’s wrong?”
Loki shook his head, straightened his shoulders, and gave her a forced smile. “Nothing. You’re doing great. Keep it up.” He fell silent again. It was nice of her to care, but he wasn’t about to tell Valentina that he didn’t particularly like this whole business of looking for more gods. He rather enjoyed being the only god in her life. At least, he’d have her for himself for a while longer. He was the only one who knew where to find a pittore di anime, so until she found some other deity who’d jump at the opportunity to lend a pretty witch a hand, she depended on him.
“Six down,” Val said, “More or less. Three more to go. Right, back to the pillows. I remember falling through a ceiling and landing in this grand hall that was filled with people, men and women...” She blushed a bright shade of pink. “It doesn’t matter. He had these rich, marvelous stag horns on his head, and it was easy to guess he was the Devil. But, again... there are so many gods who could represent the Devil.”
“Two more!” The hobgoblin jumped up and down, as if Valentina’s discoveries were his own.
“Then, I remember a little cabin in the woods. The night was dark, it was windy... I think it was raining, too. He was there, inside, starting the fire. There was no electricity where he lived, just a gas lamp on the table.” She wrote everything down but stopped to a halt when she couldn’t come up with anything more useful. “No, I can’t guess this one. I just rem
ember thinking he seemed so lonely and isolated. But he didn’t look sad. I think it was his choice.”
She leaned back in her chair and looked out the window. She stayed like that for a few long minutes, her mind mostly blank. She felt exhausted, and her memory was starting to refuse to cooperate more than it already had. Even though it was the middle of the day, all she wanted was to go to sleep.
Loki was getting a serious case of boredom. Apparently, Piper was back to staring at his profile, and the hobgoblin was keeping himself busy by poofing from one table to another, checking what other people had on their plates and in their cups and glasses. At least, he was making sure no one could see him, so Loki mentally thanked him for not being a pain in the ass, like most hobgoblins were known to be.
“It’s time to go,” he said.
Val startled at the sound of his voice. “No, wait. There’s someone I remember clearly. It’s as if I met him yesterday.” Poring over her notebook, she missed the look of pain that crossed Loki’s handsome features. “Osiris. He is Judgement. He told me so himself. Unfortunately, all I know of his current life is that he chose to come here as a human so he could binge-watch TV shows and stuff his face with takeaway and beer. Yeah, I know. Ridiculous. A god who wanted to be a couch potato all along.”
Loki took out his deck of cards and started playing with them, shuffling, throwing them in the air, and juggling them to keep his hands busy and his mind at ease.
“What else did Osiris tell you?” he asked.
Val furrowed her brows in concentration. “Many things, in fact. He was the only one who was willing to answer my questions. He helped me pass the Test. And he... Oh my Goddess!” She went pale. “He told me not to look for him. He told me there will come a time when I will need him, when I will need an... err... Osiris, and he made me promise that I would leave him alone and find myself... another Osiris.”
There was silence for a long moment. Loki stopped messing with the cards, and Magny poofed back on the table. Piper was the one to break the silence.
“That makes no sense.”
“It does, though,” Val whispered. “He said something about aspects. A god is not just a god. Nor a goddess. They have more aspects. And I promised him I would look for another one of his aspects.” She turned to Loki. “Is that true?”
The Trickster’s shoulders relaxed, and this time, his smile was genuine.
“Yes, it’s true. We’re more than just multi-dimensional beings. We can split into more aspects and live in different places, times, and dimensions at once. I’m only an aspect of Loki, the God of Mischief.”
“So, during my Test, I could have run into any other aspect of... you? It was just a coincidence that I found you?”
“There’s no such thing as coincidences, love. You found the aspect that was the closest to you and what you needed at the time.” He refrained from adding the aspect that was most open to receiving her fully and without judgement.
Valentina was silent. She looked at her notes, underlined a couple of things, then reached inside the backpack and pulled out I misteri degli Arcani. She had more information now, so maybe she would see the book with new eyes.
“Oh, no, no, no!” Loki stood up and motioned for the check. “If you’re going to start reading and bore us to death, then we’re out of here.”
“I need to find out...”
“You need to see the painter of souls, right?” He gave her an impatient smile. Anything but to spend another hour or more with Piper staring up his nose and the hobgoblin hobgoblining around like the annoying creature that he was. “Come on. The gallery is still open.”
“Gallery?” Val gathered her things as Loki shoved three playing cards in the check holder. “Those are not...”
Loki laughed. “What? Money? They will be.” He winked at her and made his way to the exit.
Val hesitated. She exchanged a glance with Piper, and when the blonde shrugged and followed Loki, she sighed and did the same. She could have easily paid, so why didn’t she stop to do the right thing? Maybe she believed him. If he said the playing cards would turn into real money, they probably would. Right?
Loki jumped on a bus, and Val and Piper had to keep up with him. They both asked where they were going, but he wouldn’t tell them. He liked playing the mysterious guy too much. Humans... Their obsession with keeping everything under control was funny for him to watch. Doe-eyed Piper was more willing to let someone else take the lead, but Valentina was different. He could see it wasn’t just the fact that she was a witch and witches were used to controlling their environment. It was in her blood, in her personality. She thrived only when everything was clear, organized, practical, and stable. This whole adventure was taking a serious toll on her, and on the one hand, Loki felt sorry that she had to suffer, but on the other hand, he knew that she needed this. She needed the chaos and the confusion, she needed to lose herself, so she could find herself again and realize she was never the person she thought she was. She was looking out the window, away from him, because she knew he could see right through her tough façade. Her nose so pretty, slightly upturned, her lips so full and sweet... He thought her lips were sweet. He wouldn’t know. Until he’d taste them. Yes, next item on the God of Mischief’s bucket list: taste Valentina De Rossi’s lips. And then, maybe he could move on with his eternal life.
He didn’t tell them they had to get off the bus, so Piper and Val had to scramble after him, Val cursing him under her breath. Not literally cursing him, because that would have been a very bad idea. They stopped in front of an old building, went up two flights of stairs, and found themselves in the middle of a small art gallery. The walls were covered in paintings of wonderland landscapes, galaxies, and much too many iterations of the moon and its phases. There were two more people visiting the gallery – a couple. In a corner, a young, elegantly dressed woman was watching them intently, and when Loki stepped in front of a painting to study it better, she approached them.
“If you have any questions about the art and the artist...” she started.
“Did you paint these?” asked Val.
The woman laughed cutely. “No, I’m just the curator. The artist is Sia Harlow.”
Loki motioned for Valentina to join him. “Come here. What do you see?”
Val cocked an eyebrow. They were standing in front of the painting of a blue and violet sky.
“I don’t know. I’m not a very artsy person. I think that’s the constellation of Pisces?”
“That’s not what I meant. Try again.”
Val shrugged. She was losing interest. Piper stepped up to save her.
“I would have expected a painter of souls to paint people, not landscapes.”
Val crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Loki. “So, you took us to the wrong gallery.”
He rolled his eyes. “No, it’s the right gallery. But if you can’t appreciate the art, then let’s go find the artist and get this over with.”
“I’m not here for the art,” Val hissed between gritted teeth, throwing the curator lady a forced smile. She hoped the woman hadn’t overhead them. She didn’t want to sound rude, but she was in kind of a hurry. What with saving the Major Arcana and all.
They followed Loki to the back, down one flight of stairs, then another. They reached a narrow, inner courtyard, and Valentina covered her mouth and nose with her hand. It smelled like cigarette smoke, urine, and Goddess knew what else. Piper stopped in her tracks, unsure whether it was a good idea to advance between the old buildings that seemed to crumble to the ground. It was weird how the side facing the street looked fine, but the back was a post-apocalyptic mess. The mysteries of London, she guessed...
In a corner, leaning against a dirty brick wall, was a petite girl, smoking. Even as Loki and Valentina approached her, she ignored them, staring in the distance. She was wearing a pair of tattered jeans, boots that had seen better times, a dirty T-shirt, and a hoodie that had been pink onc
e. Her bright red hair was tucked under the hood, only a few strands having escaped their cotton prison.
“Sia, darling. Fancy seeing you here!” Loki chirped.
“She’s the painter?!” Piper had stepped closer to Val to whisper her doubts in her ear.
“What do you want, Trickster?”
The girl’s voice sounded young and bored. Apparently, she knew exactly who he was. Valentina was a bit taken aback, then she remembered that Sia herself wasn’t just a normal human, an Ordinary. The cigarettes she was smoking, though... They smelled something foul!
Loki motioned for Valentina to step closer.
“Do you still take commissions? My friend here wants to place an order.”
The girl sighed, took the last drag, threw the cigarette on the ground with an expert flick of her finger, then pulled a new one from a crumpled packet. Only when she had it lit and safely placed between her chapped lips did she look up at Valentina.
“What do you need, cutie?”
While Val looked offended by the girl’s careless familiarity, Piper was staring at Sia’s face like she’d just seen one of the lost wonders of the world. Pale skin, freckles everywhere, on her nose, cheeks, neck, green eyes, and hair almost the color of molten copper. She was sickly thin, though, and incredibly dirty, which made Piper immediately come up with a scenario where she took the petite artist somewhere far away, to a warm, exotic island, and fed her chicken and potatoes until she plumped up and looked like a normal person.
“Hi, I’m Piper.”
The blonde waived at Sia and blushed to the tips of her ears when Sia spared her a quick, uninterested glance and nodded, only to look back at Val in a split second.
“Spill, cutie. I don’t have all day.”
Val dragged in a breath. She could see Loki from the corner of her eye. That smug idiot was having a blast watching the awkward interaction.
“First of all, please stop calling me cutie? I mean, thank you. I’ll take it as a compliment. But my name is Valentina De Rossi.”
“Quite a big name, don’t you think?” Sia grinned. “I think it sounds big. Too big for you. You come from a rich family. Have you earned it?”
