Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 46785 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46785 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Loki rose to his feet, his Hawaiian shirt fluttering in the breeze. Tristan had the distinct feeling they were no longer on the same beach they had been before, and when he tore his eyes away from Mort, no easy feat, he discovered that they were still at water’s edge, but the water looked deeper, greener, and it flowed rather than surged. They were next to a river. An ancient river. They were at Mort’s home, or on the porch, at least.
Loki grinned, wild, reckless, and pleased at this turn of events.
They were not alone. There was an audience. Charon, the ferry man, and Anubis, the jackal-headed god stood at varying distances, looking on as if to witness the fight.
Tristan saw them and knew who they were in the same way mortals have always been able to recognize psychopomps. He was the only thing out of place here, the only living mortal thing. He was the prize over which these titanic forces did battle.
“Show me what you’ve got, little reaper,” Loki encouraged Mort with an indulgent tone that only encouraged Mort’s rage.
Mort urged his black mount forward, making a brazen forward attack. Kitten was massive but agile, big paws covering massive amounts of ground. Mort’s scythe seemed as large as the curve of the moon as he swung it toward the smirking god. It truly seemed as though Loki would have nowhere to go.
But Loki was not a fighter. He was a trickster. And that meant his first move was unexpected. Mort had come to kill, but Loki did not have that kind of skin in the game.
He transformed before Mort could hit him, and taking the form of a serpent, he slid into the waters of Lethe, green and gold scales undulating until he surfaced behind Mort and Kitten.
“Missed me,” he laughed.
Tristan could already tell this was going to go poorly. He wished he could tell Mort to stop, but there was no talking to Mort now. The reaper was in a rage, and it was that rage that was his downfall.
Mort leaped from Kitten’s back and charged at Loki, dark robe fluttering in the wind through the perpetually leafless trees of Lethe. He was so very angry, and so very determined to shed the blood of the god who stood between him and his boy. He was not thinking clearly. He was not thinking at all.
The end of the serpent’s tail snaked out from the water, coiled about his ankle, lifted him up and slammed him down on the ground hard enough to make his scythe shatter into a thousand spinning, gleaming shards.
In the distance, Anubis palmed his face.
Loki kept him pinned easily with the serpent’s tail as he strode back toward Mort, twin horns curling from his dark, wet hair. He was more handsome now, more angular, more masterful, less amused.
He emitted a tutting sound as he looked down at Mort, shaking his head with what felt like disappointment. For his part, Mort glared up into the gaze of the god.
“You could have made this easy,” Loki said. “You could have gone away and been sweet to one another for a year. But you had to test me, little reaper. And now I have to punish you.”
Loki crouched down next to Mort and touched him with an affectionate graze of his fingertips. It would have been easier to take if it had been a cruel slap, but Loki knew that.
Mort felt his reaper essence sliding away. He felt the shades of night slip from his skin. He felt himself made mortal. His heart began to beat in his chest. He drew breath. It was awful.
He was hungry. He was tired. He hurt. Not from wounds, but all over, a hundred little aches. He wondered if he was sick, but quickly realized this was just how humans felt.
“I will see you in a year,” Loki said with the firm, yet affectionate sternness of a parent who has been forced to punish a son. “Now you must not only demonstrate love and honesty, but humility.”
15
Mort woke up in bed. He had never woken up in a bed before, and the tangle of sheets frightened him for a moment until he realized what they were, and that he was not alone. First he felt Kitten curled up next to him. Then he heard Tristan’s voice.
“Mornin’,” Tristan said affectionately. “You sleep like a log.”
Mort had also never slept before. It had been a general lack of experience, which was not so bad compared to all the things he was experiencing. The light coming in through the windows hurt. Looking at Tristan’s gorgeous stubble-covered face hurt.
Mort closed his eyes and wished with all his might that he had not made the series of choices he’d made. The memories were flooding back, prompted by Tristan’s enthusiastic recounting.