flagstones now running fast with a dangerous amount of rainwater. Once he slipped on the slick stone. There was a thick layer of cloud surrounding the mountain, and in the gloom and the storm beyond the courtyard he could see no states at all.
There was no sound. The place seemed utterly abandoned.
He called out, and imagined he heard something answering. He walked toward the place from which he thought the sound had come.
Nobody. Nothing. Just a chain marking the entrance to a cave as off-limits to guests.
Shadow stepped over the chain.
He looked around, peering into the darkness.
His skin prickled.
A voice from behind him, in the shadows, said, very quietly, “You have never disappointed me.”
Shadow did not turn. “That’s weird,” he said. “I disappointed myself all the way. Every time.”
“Not at all,” chuckled the voice. “You did everything you were meant to do, and more. You took everybody’s attention, so they never looked at the hand with the coin in it. It’s called misdirection. And there’s power in the sacrifice of a son—power enough, and more than enough, to get the whole ball rolling. To tell the truth, I’m proud of you.”
“It was crooked,” said Shadow. “All of it. None of it was for real. It was just a set-up for a massacre.”
“Exactly,” said Wednesday’s voice from the shadows. “It was crooked. But it was the only game in town.”
“I want Laura,” said Shadow. “I want Loki. Where are they?”
There was only silence. A spray of rain gusted at him. Thunder rumbled somewhere close at hand.
He walked further in.
Loki Lie-Smith sat on the ground with his back to a metal cage. Inside the cage, drunken pixies tended their still. He was covered with a blanket. Only his face showed, and his hands, white and long, came around the blanket. An electric lantern sat on a chair beside him. The lantern’s batteries were close to failing, and the light it cast was faint and yellow.
He looked pale, and he looked rough.
His eyes, though. His eyes were still fiery, and they glared at Shadow as he walked through the cavern.
When Shadow was several paces from Loki, he stopped.
“You are too late,” said Loki. His voice was raspy and wet. “I have thrown the spear. I have dedicated the battle. It has begun.”
“No shit,” said Shadow.
“No shit,” said Loki. “It does not matter what you do any more. It is too late.”
“Okay,” said Shadow. He stopped and thought. Then he said, “You say there’s some spear you had to throw to kick off the battle. Like the whole Uppsala thing. This is the battle you’ll be feeding on. Am I right?”
Silence. He could hear Loki breathing, a ghastly rattling inhalation.
“I figured it out,” said Shadow. “Kind of. I’m not sure when I figured it out. Maybe when I was hanging on the tree. Maybe before. It was from something Wednesday said to me, at Christmas.”
Loki just stared at him, saying nothing.
“It’s just a two-man con,” said Shadow. “Like the bishop and the diamond necklace and the cop. Like the guy with the fiddle, and the guy who wants to buy the fiddle, and the poor sap in between them who pays for the fiddle. Two men, who appear to be on opposite sides, playing the same game.”
Loki whispered, “You are ridiculous.”
“Why? I liked what you did at the motel. That was smart. You needed to be there, to make sure that everything went according to plan. I saw you. I even realized who you were. And I still never twigged that you were their Mister World. Or maybe I did, somewhere down deep. I knew I knew your voice, anyway.”
Shadow raised his voice. “You can come out,” he said, to the cavern. “Wherever you are. Show yourself.”
The wind howled in the opening of the cavern, and it drove a spray of rainwater in toward them. Shadow shivered.
“I’m tired of being played for a sucker,” said Shadow. “Show yourself. Let me see you.”
There was a change in the shadows at the back of the cave. Something became more solid; something shifted. “You know too damned much, m’boy,” said Wednesday’s familiar rumble.
“So they didn’t kill you.”
“They killed me,” said Wednesday, from the shadows. “None of this would have worked if they hadn’t.” His voice was faint—not actually quiet, but there was a quality to it that made Shadow think of an old radio not quite tuned in to a distant station. “If I hadn’t died for real, we could never have got them here,” said Wednesday.