Sirens in the distance grew closer, but they wouldn’t arrive before Gretta was dead. Not that she’d expect law enforcement to side with the tiger in this situation.

  Victor held the gun under Gretta’s chin. Once again, his power had made her mind incapable of manipulating magic by coating it in mystical oil, breaking her healing spell. She was still in tiger form, but getting shot in the throat at point-blank range would be fatal. With a broken shoulder, she couldn’t even lunge to take him with her.

  “I’m going to let you shift back to human,” he said. “But if I think you’re pulling anything funny? I’ll kill you first. I’m not ending up as tiger chow”

  “What if I do something funny?” A male voice asked from behind Victor.

  Gretta’s eyes widened. Standing in the shadows was Rowan. He looked much the same as he always did with a hoodie and messy hair. He was grinning.

  Victor’s cigarette dangled from his lip. “We incinerated your body.”

  Rowan stepped forward, grinning. “That’s way nicer than what the Warlord did to me!”

  Gretta tried to pull healing magic, but it still slipped past her mental grip. She needed to warn Rowan.

  Rowan glanced at her and felt the order magic coating her—its rigid structure the antithesis of his. He lashed out with chaos, and the spell cracked like fractured glass.

  Victor didn’t seem to notice the destruction of his spell. “Tell me your sins!” Victor demanded, his words pulsing with magic.

  Rowan sighed. “Well, I figure that Abby is going to tell everybody anyway… So, it was Ellie’s birthday, and she was working in the cafeteria, doing food prep. Being a good boyfriend, I slipped into the walk-in cooler to wait for her. When she came to get some fresh vegetables, I was waiting for her. Anyway, long story short, when her manager wondered why it was taking so long for her to get carrots and came to check on Ellie in the cooler, there we were. Ellie was so upset with me for getting her fired that she took my clothes—if you’ll believe it! So, I walked out of there wearing nothing but a cardboard box and a grin.”

  Victor blinked. “W-what?”

  Rowan had closed the distance between himself and Victor while telling the story and was now only two feet away. “No. It’s a true story. I suppose Ellie didn’t tell you that one, though?”

  “How dare you besmirch the goddess of light’s name!” Victor swung his gun toward Rowan. “Kneel!” He unleashed a torrent of judgment magic toward Rowan.

  Rowan leaned forward and whispered. “That doesn’t work on me.”

  Victor’s finger tightened on the trigger, but he hesitated when he heard the low rumble behind him. Gretta rolled to her feet. “What the—”

  Gretta’s roar sent a shockwave of silence through the night. For a mile in every direction, the world froze.

  Taking the opportunity while Victor’s gun was drifting away from his face, Rowan dove on Victor and drove him to the ground. The weapon skittered away along the pavement and under Victor’s damaged car.

  The sounds of sirens drew closer. Rowan wound up and slugged Victor in the body. Victor went boneless and fell to his knees.

  Rowan dusted himself off. “We should get out of here.” He glanced at Gretta. “You good to run?”

  Gretta nodded.

  Rowan pulled magic and shifted to coyote. He let out a yipe and dashed down an alley. Gretta took a last look at Victor. She owed him a view of his own intestines, but the sounds of screeching tires told her that she’d have to wait. With a few bounds, she chased after the coyote into the open desert.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  An hour later, the sound of sirens and the light from the city were distant. Rowan stopped and shifted to human. Gretta laid down on the ground panting.

  “Tigers aren’t much for long-distance running?” Rowan asked.

  Gretta stared at him with unblinking eyes.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” he said. “You should be safe to shift back to human now so we can talk.”

  She let out a low rumble.

  “Okay,” he said. “This will make this conversation harder, but I’m willing to play charades if you are. I didn’t see Sofia back there, so I assume she’s someplace safe.”

  Gretta closed her eyes, still panting.

  “I don’t think Victor will follow after us that quickly. He’d need to get his people out of bed to try to track us at night through miles of desert, where we could be hiding in ambush. And he knows from experience that it won’t be easy. He’s better off waiting for the morning and bringing dogs and helicopters. He’ll also probably want a change of underwear.”

  Gretta let out a hmph of air. Then she shifted from tiger to human, and laughter burst from her. “Did you smell that too? The whole trip to his office was worth it.”

  “He caught you?” Rowan said with concern.

  Gretta’s smile turned sober. “After you… left us, I got Sofia to the car, and we got away from Gabriela only to run into Victor,” Gretta said, bitterness in every word.

  “Damn,” Rowan said. “I don’t think they are working together, but I don’t think they are working against each other, either.”

  Gretta’s shoulders slumped. “I think Gabriela has Sofia.”

  “Maybe you should explain from the beginning,” Rowan said.

  “How do I know you’re not the one responsible for all this?” Gretta asked. “I’ve been piecing together many small details, and people don’t just return from the dead. I saw your body. You were dead and gone, and now you’re back? Nobody can do that.” She swallowed hard. "Nobody mortal, anyway.”

  “Oh. Yeah, about that—”

  “About that?” Gretta’s voice went up an octave. “You’re a fucking god and didn’t say anything?”

  Rowan winced. “Well, it didn’t really come up.” A twinge of guilt ran through him. He didn’t want to be a god. He’d never wanted to be a god, and being immortal wasn’t the same as being powerful enough to change anything.

  “I thought you were a disciple of the Trickster god, but you were the actual Trickster!”

  Rowan shrugged. “Does it matter?”

  She stood up and marched straight at him. “You’re a god, and you let them take Sofia!”

  Rowan blinked. “I haven’t let anybody do anything. I’ve died multiple times now trying to save her.”

  Gretta made air quotes. “Died.” She slugged him in the chest. “You feel pretty alive to me.”

  “Ouch,” he said. “Death hurts like crazy, and, yes, I can come back, but it’s one hell of a trip. Not to mention that every time I die, another god tries to trap me forever in their home-built, eternal-suffering, insanity-inducing dungeon.”

  “But you always escape, and you have all of eternity to do so,” she said. “And what about Sofia?”

  “I’m seriously doing everything I can to save her. She’s your aunt’s girlfriend’s disciple.”

  Gretta’s fist hovered in the air for a moment before she dropped it. “My what?”

  “Have you ever considered anger management classes?”

  Gretta raised the fist again and stepped toward him.

  “Nadia, uh—the goddess of darkness and secrets, is your aunt’s girlfriend, and she had mentioned that it’s important that you don’t look for your mother or that it’ll destroy you.”

  Gretta’s fist lowered. “The goddess of secrets knows what happened to my mother? And I’m not supposed to find out?!”

  “She said your mother is gone. And that if you go looking, it’ll destroy you.”

  Gretta’s stomach twisted. “Destroy me how?”

  Rowan hesitated, rubbing his neck. “She didn’t say. Just that you really, really shouldn’t.”

  Her fist curled tight again. “I’ve spent my whole life searching for her. And now you’re telling me—” She cut herself off, breathing hard. “What else did she say?”

  Rowan took a careful step back. “Uh, your aunt sent me with this.” He produced the pendant necklace for his pocket.

  “We’re not done talking about my mother,” she said, but her eyes locked at the necklace he was holding out. She might have thought it was a trick, but he could feel her goddess’s magic radiating off it. Gretta reached out and took it. The moment she touched it, she knew it wasn’t a trick. “What is this?” she whispered.