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Young Tristan scrambled back as an unexpected sink hole opened up in the desert, sucking down the spade, wagon, and the body before filling itself over.
“That was me,” Loki smiled broadly, in case anybody had missed the point.
“I put my mark on him,” Loki said. “Because he needed protection. You owe me thanks, not threats.”
“Perhaps,” Mort acknowledged. “But if you would be so kind, I would like you to relinquish the mark now, so I might take the burden.”
Loki cocked his head, his eyes glimmering with mischief. “I am still technically his guardian. And I don’t know if you’re a suitable match for my little murder boy. It seems like the two of you don’t really know each other. The kid didn’t tell you about his murder? That’s a basic getting-to-know-you sort of thing. I tell all my lovers about my murders.”
Mort was unbothered. “It does not matter what he did. I do not judge him. I applaud him.”
With those words, all the fear that had been inhabiting Tristan for years suddenly flowed out of his body. Mort knew his deepest, darkest secret. Mort knew who he was. Had seen him at his worst — and loved him anyway. Tristan wanted to throw himself at Mort, kiss him thoroughly, thank him for his love, but it was not the time, because the god was still speaking.
Loki had missed this revelation, too intent on his own agenda.
“Prove to me that your love is true, mutual, and moreover, honest, and I will remove my mark. You have one year. I love setting arbitrary deadlines.”
Tristan looked at Mort, who for the first time, looked less than all-powerful. He looked supernaturally sullen.
“Are there any criteria, specifically?” Tristan started talking, though Mort had forbidden him to do so. It seemed to him that Mort was far too furious to speak right now.
“The reaper will live with you, murder boy. And as for the rest of it, I’ll make my decision as to whether or not your love is true the same way the Supreme Court defined pornography. I’ll know it when I see it.”
“This is why I quit,” Mort muttered under his breath. “This kind of god bullshit.”
Tristan found Mort so relatable in that moment. Getting pushed around and kicked about by bigger, meaner beings was his life story.
“I love you,” Tristan said, wrapping a consoling arm around Mort’s shoulders. “And don’t worry. I don’t have anything else to lie about.”
“It’s not that simple,” Mort growled. “With this god, there will always be another challenge, another stumbling block. He is toying with us because he can. Like a cat with two mice.”
The kitten in Mort’s hood let out a little mew at the word mice.
“I will see you boys in one year’s time,” Loki said, lowering his sunglasses again.
Mort firmly but gently pressed Tristan away from the recumbent god. The murder scene had faded. They were back on the beach. Loki had seen fit to bring matters to a close, it seemed, but Mort was not having it.
He stepped forward, casting a long, grim shadow over Loki’s body.
“You forgot something about me,” Mort said coldly. “Or perhaps you never knew it, you being a god, me being a lowly psychopomp.”
“Oh?” Loki tilted his sunglasses up just a little.
Mort leaned down and smiled the sort of smile nobody ever wants to see. It was a smile that made even Tristan take three big steps backward. Whatever was coming, he did not want to be in the blast radius. He’d learned that lesson thoroughly.
“I have listened to the begging of millions of souls since the beginning of time, and not once have I taken mercy on a single one of them. Do you know why?”
Loki smiled, delighted at this feisty turn of events.
“Do tell.”
Mort’s voice deepened, resonating with eternity.
“I am the reaper. I do not make deals. I take lives.”
The scythe swung. The kitten in Mort’s hood jumped and grew. It had not shown any sign of getting bigger in the several weeks Mort and Tristan had been together. It had remained stunted, a little baby cat. But it was a baby no more. And it was a cat no more. Claws extended into silvery scythes, as teeny kitten feets turned to massive, murderous paws.
The beast was leonine and sabertoothed, a feline predator of the collective consciousness, and Mort was astride it.
“Holy shit….”
It was the most terrifying, hottest thing Tristan had ever seen. Mort’s hoodie and jeans were now a robe, a robe that hung open from his shoulders, muscular chest and abdomen bared, soul markings glowing with his ire.
Tristan had never seen Mort this way, both deadly and reckless. It was the hottest thing he had ever seen.
“My, my, look at you,” Loki purred, admiring. “You are spectacular when you are angry.”
“Defend yourself, god,” Mort snarled, twirling his scythe to the side of his dark mount.
