I didn't know where the hell I was, besides from far, far away from Earth.

Maybe even long, long ago?

I'd never really been into astronomy, so I couldn't name the stars around me, at least off the top of my head. Instead, I spun around in the void, trying to fix my superhuman sight on something, anything I could use as a...spacemark? To get back to Earth.

I was thousands of times faster than sound, could reach the moon in minutes, but deep space doesn't care about that sort of speed. So, unless I happened across something I could drain of lifeforce to boost myself, without being crushed under guilt, it looked like it would be a long way home.

That was when I spotted them.

Hex looked about as well as anyone could after a nutshot from Mjolnir. The old mage's white coat and ARC uniform were tattered and covered in soot, likely from the speed he had traveled at, and his slouch hat had been lost somewhere along the way, revealing close-cropped, chalk-white hair and equally pale, bland features.

Except the stitches, of course.

Nacht, darkness itself, roiled and spun around its partner-master?-like the universe's scariest concerned dog. It sensed my approach, as the dark images flashing across it were replaced by a face made out of storm clouds, with fangs of lightning.

'Silva. You should not be here. No matter.' Something like jealousy, maybe even concern, entered its screeching voice. 'Hex is hurt. You cannot see me healing him. I will send you to Earth, then follow, once he is safe. Did Thor hurt you, too?'

I blinked at the question, then considered.

Thor, like some supernaturals, had such control over his strength that physics obeyed it, rather than the other way around. I had once mentioned supernaturals trying to stop vehicles and being sent flying because they were light. The ones who do that are rookies, amateurs. Experienced ones can do things like lift mountains, or hurt beings tougher than them without affecting the environment. This extended to speed and durability too, allowing them to move faster than lightning without creating sonic booms or setting things on fire, as well as taking immense hits without being sent flying, despite the force.

I wasn't on that level yet. Not that it would have helped, against the Norse god of strength. But...hurt?

I rubbed my neck where Thor had gripped me. It had burned, yes, but he was a god, so of course his touch was harmful to strigoi. But, besides that? Thor had thrown me to another star system without breaking the Earth, or me, as a side-effect. If he had hit me, let alone with Mjolnir, I would have been truly dead now, as he had promised.

'I don't think so,' I replied. 'But...I can fly, you know. Unless you have a way to speed me along?'

Nacht scoffed, and explained how it was all forms of darkness, allowing people and objects to travel between shadows. 'But before you leave, Silva...you saw what those brutes did, just to get back what they lost out of negligence. They cannot be allowed to have Mimir's head back. Even if they don't use his knowledge for revenge against ARC for trying to stop them, they are clearly not fit to watch over it.'

I honestly wasn't sure about that. Was Nacht, despite its love of destruction, going to propose that ARC should, what, confiscate a pantheon's possession and keep it because they were incompetent? The suggestion alone would insult the Aesir, never mind doing it. 'I'm not sure I like where you're going.'

'Don't be a fool, strigoi! We must find Mimir's head and guard it until someone who can and should have it comes along. I know you and Hex have never worked together, but we must help each other in this crisis. If you find the head, or even learn of its location, you must share it with us.'

I thought of Szabo, and how ARC had never mentioned him until I had met him. Were they really in a position to ask me not to keep secrets?

No. This was stupid. Nacht was a monster, but bound to Hex's will. They'd been defending the world since before pops had been born.

So, as I approached Nacht's form, which had shaped itself to show a shadow leading into the Sognefjord, I gave it my answer. 'I promise I'll help you find the head.'

***

As the strigoi left, Nacht straightened up, grinning. Antlers grew out of its head as its silhouette was reshaped, becoming humanoid.

'A promise...it's lovely, when you receive things you didn't even ask for, on top of what you want,' Chernobog mused to himself, clasping his hands and making Hex dissolve, the bait fading into mana and stardust. 'So obliging, today's youth!'

***

The Aesir had returned to Asgard by the time I returned from Alpha Centauri, Odin restoring the damage done by his son in his fight with the cyborg revenant that was the Unscarred. The Shaper, as the yoctomachine controller called itself, greeted me as "aberrant Silva" and promised the Collective would not cease its efforts to restore logic to the world.

While Odin went to eat crow before the other pantheon leaders for his son's rashness, my colleagues and I returned to headquarters, where our Head, Aya Reem, congratulated us for the attempt to resolve things peacefully, while doubtlessly cursing the Aesir in her head.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

We were given leave, to a degree, allowed free time and traveling were we wanted as long as we kept an eye out for rumours of Mimir's head or other godly incursions.

That was why, when Szabo came at me like the world's ugliest comet, I was in the Raised Scale, chatting with Mia. Lucas was at an art gallery in Bulgaria, so she was holding down the fort.

The strigoi slammed his hand through my skull up to the wrist as he dragged me out of the shop, Bucharest amd onto the stretch of road between the capital and Urziceni.

I didn't even have time to ask what the fuck was wrong with him, besides everything, when he slammed me down and began tearing me to shreds-you say?-while calling me every synonym of "idiot".

'I thought you were only blind when it came to your nature, David,' he sneered, my blood and flesh slashing up on his ARC shirt and flayed skin jacket. 'But you are truly blind. Speaking as you wish when you're a civilian is one, but when you're ARC? Compromising us?'

Mia flew at him from behind, so fast the ground turned to steam beneath her. Szabo didn't even look as he backhanded her away, the zmeu's landing creating a mountain-sized, steaming crater. Even from where I was, I could see her jaw hanging by a strand as she cradled it with one hand, glaring daggers at Szabo while it healed.

I saw red. I prepared to drain every fucking blade of grass of lifeforce, and give Szabo a taste of his own medicine, but Lucas did it first.

The zmeu was wearing a pair of dark blue sweatpants with white lines running up the sides and a white sleeveless shirt whose back was narrow so it could fit between his wings.

He was also wearing Szabo as a glove.

Lucas' clawed hand was buried deep into the strigoi's chest, wrapped around his spine as he held Szabo four metres off the ground.

'You are assaulting an agent,' Szabo hissed. "This is official ARC business-"

'If every bloodthirsty bitch could throw on an ARC uniform and be an agent, the world would be up shit creek without a boat,' Lucas said calmly. 'I could hear your shrill rant from the next country over. Leave Silva alone. And...' two pairs of blue eyes left Szabo to take in Mia, still healing, yellowish skin forming over torn muscles. Those eyes were shining with blue flames when they returned to the strigoi. 'Her?'

'She was aiding a rogue element within ARC-'

'She's goddamn harmless.' I didn't have the heart to call out Lucas for blaspheming. 'So is Silva. I don't know what he does at work, but if you tried to kill him, then hurt my employee, when she jumped in to help him-' he was baring his fangs now. 'You know what would have happened if you hadn't pulled that slap?'

Lucas drew back his own hand, to demonstrate. When the bloody mist coalesced back into Szabo, he didn't look too pleased.

'Fucking...I need a smoke,' Lucas grumbled, taking a blunt the size of a cat out of his pocket. Then, putting it in his middle head's mouth, he gripped Szabo's jaw with his free hand and tugged lightly.

Lucas drew the strigoi's fangs over his neck's scales, sparks jumping. He smiled when a fat white one caught the end of his cigar, lighting it. "Ahh...much better." He blew out a ring of smoke into Szabo's already-healed, bloody face. 'Forgot my lighter in your mother's cunt when I left to drill your sister. Want this back?' he waved the mangled jaw in the strigoi's face, who bared his fangs, saying nothing. Lucas shrugged, crushing it into paste with a twitch of his trashcan lid-sized hand. 'Weird. Judging by your getup, I'd have thought you were into recycling.'

'I think he got the message, little brother,' Aaron rumbled, suddenly standing behind Lucas, Szabo now in his hand. The nine-headed zmeu looked like he'd found a slug in his salad. 'Didn't I promise I'd kill you if you came to Romania?'

'Know him?' Lucas grumbled around his blunt.

'Oh, yes. From back when our countries were comrades. Still remember that gruesome "cravat" of his...' Aaron trailed off as Szabo opened his mouth, glaring. 'Yes, I was retired. On retainer, actually. Ready to re-enter service, if needed. And they called me back. I was in Constanța before I smelled your foul carcass.'

Aaron's building-sized body was clad in a Navy Admiral's uniform covered in so many medals, I was sure they'd have crushed a human. At his joints, bands of bronze, linked by nigh-invisible wires, gleamed. His war-harness, able to shapeshift, enhance his body and create any tool and weapon he could need.

I dearly wished he'd put a cross through Szabo's skull.

'I doubt your superior likes you crossing borders to assault colleagues, Loric. Should I throw you to Giza, to have a talk?'

...Alright. Enough of watching the byplay like a slack-jawed moron. 'What the fuck is going on here?!'

Aaron gave me a series of avuncular smiles, with all heads. 'You should check your aura, Silva. Darker than I-or you, I think-believe you're used to. But besides that...Romania's legends are being called to war, lest the gods break the world. Have you ever wanted to meet your heroes?'