Page 23
He smiled with all the sharpness of a dagger as he flicked the remnants of his alter ego from his shoulder, a stray scrap of Alexandra’s dress.
Morrow and I sat motionless. Who was this man, really, and what was his purpose? We needed to be careful with our words and our actions, avoiding any breaches of etiquette that an entity would deem offensive. Fucking entities and magical manners and protocol. The whole while our waitress stood as still as a statue, her smile frozen in time, features as glassy as the rest of the hotel lounge.
“You’ve learned a fair bit about my charms, haven’t you?” the man said. “It’s honestly quite impressive how dedicated you are to the cause. It makes me wonder why. Happy Links has hardly brought any trouble to the city — unless, of course, the two of you are following your primal imperative to protect your fellow humans.”
As if we needed even more proof that the thing behind Alexandra Thorpe wasn’t human.
“Factually untrue,” Morrow said. “We were attacked by three young women wearing your charms just yesterday. Who knows how many more of these assaults have erupted across the city?”
He was keeping deathly calm in the face of this being who’d so effortlessly frozen our surroundings. Barely visible patches of frost hung in the air, their patterns unnatural, unsettling. The world beyond our table curved when I turned my head this way and that. Like a fisheye lens, as if we were trapped in an icy bell jar that warped reality itself.
“You’re referring to the Happy charms, yes? The ones that bear the brand logo? Something about them makes their wearers go berserk. The rage appears to trigger when they’re unhappy or when they don’t get what they want. Perhaps it’s a glitch in the workflow. We’ll have to re-examine our manufacturing process.”
“We?” I asked. “Who else are you working with?”
The man blinked. “Why, my employees, of course, entire fleets of them well compensated and provided with excellent benefits. Are you implying that I need anyone else to infuse these creations with the right dose of magic? Don’t be so silly. I am a god.”
That wasn’t an exaggeration. Arcane essence poured from his very skin, a deliberate demonstration of power. He was literally flexing on us.
“My name is Loki. It’s your pleasure to meet me.”
CHAPTER 10
This was the part where I would have hauled ass and dragged Morrow behind me, if only I didn’t know that I would slam headfirst into the invisible barrier and break my nose.
Morrow didn’t miss a beat. “As an Occultech field agent, it is my duty to inform you that your corporate activities are in violation of the Nomicon Valley Accord.”
This man and his massive balls could be such a goddamn turn-on. Then I realized that I would never get his massive balls in my mouth if the two of us ended up offending, then getting slaughtered by an actual god.
“I don’t recall signing, much less hearing of any pitiful Accord. Would you deny me this entertainment, gentlemen? That would be like telling the wind to stop blowing. How my cousins would mock me. Anansi, Kokopelli, all the trickster gods braying in laughter at the thought that Loki, out of all of us, would comply with such petty concepts as rules and contracts.”
“So the Thorpes,” I said. “Did you kill them off, assume their identities? How long has this been going on?”
The god’s soft laughter reminded me of the rush of feathers, the rustle of wings. “I am the Thorpes, Mr. Frost. Every single one of them. Zebediah, Felicity, Zachariah, Theodore, Alexandra — name any of the Thorpes. Every last one is a meticulously-crafted meat puppet, and I’m the one pulling all the strings.”
“To what end?” Morrow asked, playing off Loki’s casual dismissal of the Accord as if it didn’t deeply offend his by-the-book nature. “What’s the point of all this? Boredom?”
“Boredom, yes. You live long enough, walk this earth for centuries, and you start to look for diversions. This corpo is my playground, gentlemen. Anything I can possibly imagine I can bring to life by assembling the right team of professionals. All the wealth I’ve accrued over the ages — compound interest is an insufficient description.”
“Except that’s not the whole truth,” I said, caught unawares by my own daring. “You’re not just out here trying to make a good product and turn a nice profit. Every corpo in Nomicon Valley has an ulterior motive. What’s yours?”
I tried not to dwell on how I didn’t quite know what Occultech’s was, either. One of these days I’d try and grill Morrow about the corpo’s true objectives, but something told me that he didn’t really know himself.
“Frost is right,” Morrow said. “It’s not boredom that made you unleash this mishmash of goods upon the world. Ramen, boba tea, trinkets — it doesn’t hang together.” He crossed his arms, positively fuming. “And you used to produce very decent ink, too.”
“And the hamburgers are delicious,” I grumbled grudgingly. “But those charms — I just don’t get it.”
Loki arched one eyebrow. “Clever boys. You’re absolutely right. There’s no rhyme or reason as to Happy, Inc’s stable of goods and services. Quite chaotic, the way I like it. Trickster god, remember?”
My fingernails dug into the table as I struggled not to roll my eyes.
“There’s only one common thread: virality. Things that are guaranteed to explode on the market. It’s where we invest the most, really. Marketing research to identify trends, see what gets you humans rushing to stores in droves to worship, throw your tithes and offerings at the cash register, helpless in your slavish devotion to fads and false idols. Can you guess why?”
I didn’t especially like how mocking his tone had become, even more so than when we’d started. And when your baseline is already smarmy, how much higher can you really go?
But what frustrated me more was knowing that he wasn’t wrong. Not exactly. It’s human nature, that intrinsic desire to belong to an in-group. Like attracts like. Safety in numbers. To be too different meant exclusion from the tribe, isolation, and danger from predators. Even cavemen knew.
That stuff is coded in our brains and bodies. It’s not really anyone’s fault if they have the sudden urge to buy collectible items, tchotchkes, trinkets. It’s all about status, selection, and how those who want to sell things in massive quantities prey on the fundamentals of human behavior, our primal instincts.
