American Gods

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. “Kali and the Morrigan and the Loa and the fucking Albanians and—well, you’ve seen them all. It was my death that drew them all together. I was the sacrificial lamb.”

“No,” said Shadow. “You were the Judas Goat.”

The wraith-shape in the shadows swirled and shifted. “Not at all. That implies that I was betraying the old gods for the new. Which was not what we were doing.”

“Not at all,” whispered Loki.

“I can see that,” said Shadow. “You two weren’t betraying either side. You were betraying both sides.”

“I guess we were at that,” said Wednesday. He sounded pleased with himself.

“You wanted a massacre. You needed a blood sacrifice. A sacrifice of gods.”

The wind grew stronger; the howl across the cave door became a screech, as if of something immeasurably huge in pain.

“And why the hell not? I’ve been trapped in this damned land for almost twelve hundred years. My blood is thin. I’m hungry.”

“And you two feed on death,” said Shadow.

He thought he could see Wednesday, now, standing in the shadows. Behind him—through him—were the bars of a cage which held what looked like plastic leprechauns. He was a shape made of darkness, who became more real the more Shadow looked away from him, allowed him to take shape in his peripheral vision.

“I feed on death that is dedicated to me,” said Wednesday.