Mythos by Kelly McCullough

little I don’t know. However, it does simplify things to have you admit your origins. Thank you.”
    “You’re welcome,” I said with a sigh. “This is why I tend to lose at poker.”
    “I wish I could just kill you here and now,” said Odin. “Let you become Uller’s problem in Niflheim or better still, Hades’ in your own universe. Unfortunately, among a number of other complications, you are a power—reduced and transformed by your shift of venue perhaps, but still a power. That means killing you is likely to have even more unintended consequences than letting you live.
    “You have something of the hero about you, which means you might even end up carried off to Valhalla, immortalized by my own Valkyries. And that would make you my problem until the end of days. I’d rather avoid the prospect as well as several other thorny possibilities if I can.” He sighed and looked more than a little resigned.
    “Wait, if I die here, I might not go to Hades?” I pushed myself to my feet, feeling the memories of my recent transformation echoing on as phantom pain. “Maybe I should start looking for a condo.”
    I didn’t want to die. Not at all, but if I could arrange things so that any death that might take me would put me beyond the reach of Hades—who of all my enemies hated me most—well, that would make dying a much less scary prospect.
    “I wouldn’t hunt up a Realtor just yet,” said Odin, with the first faint echo of humor I’d heard from him. “It’s a complex question with no good way to guess the answer ahead of time. I’d make your odds of being drawn back to your own deadlands and their dark ruler between thirty and fifty percent.”
    “That’s still better than the bet I’d get if I buy it on the home front. You mentioned some sort of Valhalla option, too—if I’m recalling rightly, that involves an eternity of drinking and feasting and wenching. I could be persuaded to that alternative.”
    “Your memory serves you well, though you seem to have forgotten the fighting and dying, not to mention the pain of death and of rebirth.”
    “So it’s not all fun and games; Hades intends to slow cook me until the end of time. I’m not seeing what you’d call a big downside to the whole Valhalla thing. Well, aside from the initial death part. I’d rather skip that entirely, all things considered.”
    “That would be nice.” Odin smiled a sad smile, and I knew in that instant that, whatever rules the game followed back home, here the gods were mortal.
    “There is very little you don’t know. . . .” I raised an eyebrow.
    “Including the hour and manner of my death, yes. You are a clever little Raven. Perhaps I should have named you Intuition rather than Impulse.”
    “Two sides of the same coin,” I said, “the action and its cause.”
    “You may be right, though I little expected wisdom from you.” I grinned at this, and Odin shook his head. “Don’t make too much of it. I’m not looking to hire another Raven at this time. Nor a cock robin.”
    “Ooh, he does have a sense of humor after all,” I said. Odin frowned and I mentally cursed my overactive tongue before continuing. “It’s probably better you didn’t call me up. So far, pretty much everyone I’ve ever worked for has ended up mad at me.”
    “Why don’t I find that surprising? Come, walk with me.”
    Who was I to argue? The part at the beginning about wishing he could just kill me now suggested this might be a good time to be as cooperative as possible. Together, we left the clearing and walked into the woods in silence. Somewhere in there Odin did something elaborate with the fabric of reality that included us taking several steps on a stripe of rainbow that rang hollowly beneath the heels of my motorcycle boots.
    The woods grew darker, the trees greater, shifting from oak through pine to something that reminded me of California redwood but looked more like some sort of giant ash. It was hard to say because the