Page 25 of The Best Trick

I could see people approaching. This was bad. There were cops and security personnel inside the festival grounds, and if we somehow attracted too much attention, it wouldn't just be ourselves in danger, we'd be putting my sisters in danger. This was why I'd forced myself to stay away from them this whole time—to avoid dragging them into the circle of danger that was ZOX.

“Seems you dropped this.” Odin had the man's wallet. How did he get it? He took out his driver’s license and read the man's name aloud—“Jasper Tolverson”—and then he read out Jasper’s address. “Now we know who you are and where to find you.”

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I told you,” Zeus said, “we’re the cheese police, and let's just say we’re making sure this will be a fair cheese competition.”

“You work for the festival?” Jasper asked, bewildered. I suppose it was weird that a small cheese festival would have this kind of undercover muscle.

“If you threaten this judge or any of the judges ever again,” Zeus began, “at this or any future cheese competition, we will fuck you up so hard, you'll be lucky to be mistaken for a Picasso painting.”

“A Picasso painting from the Cubist Period, motherfucker, not Blue Period,” Thor added. “And if you don't know what Picasso's Cubist paintings look like, let's just say the facial features are in the wrong fucking places.”

“I know what the fuck Picasso's Cubist paintings look like,” Jasper said.

Thor nodded. “Good.”

A pair of security guys were coming our way from the direction of the gate. Would the guy say something? Zeus put away his gun.

Thor smiled breezily, like everything was fine.

Odin looped an arm around Jasper’s shoulders, drew him near, and whispered something into his ear. Jasper turned white as a sheet, stumbled backwards, and then turned and ran the other direction toward the porta potties.

The security guards reached us. It was two burly guys. The older one stared after the sweater vest guy. “What’s going on? Was that guy giving you trouble?”

“We’re good,” I said.

“You sure?”

“Too many nutty notes in his brie,” I said.

The guards seemed to like this. “We’ll keep an eye on him,” the one said, and they ambled toward the porta potties.

“You sure you're okay?” Zeus asked.

“I'm fine. I just wasn't expecting anything like that here,” I said, though deep down, I was still shaking. “Maybe I should have just done what he asked. He could make a lot of trouble for us.”

“Goddess,” Odin said, “we may have doomed you to a life of crime, a life as a fugitive, always looking over her shoulder, but we would never want you to have to lie about something you love as much as cheese.” His voice had morphed into a growl at this point. “Not ever!”

“Thank you, baby,” I said. “So, what did you whisper in his ear that got him so upset?”

Odin shook his head.

“Oh, come on, tell me what you said to him!” I shoved Odin playfully. “Please?”

“Whatever it was, you don't want to know,” Zeus said to me.

“Doyouknow?” I asked Zeus.

“I’ve got a guess,” Zeus said.

“You don’t have the first clue,” Odin said.

“I know I don’t,” Thor said.

I turned to Thor. “And you stayed in character, making a threat that involved knowledge of fine arts,” I said. “Amazing.”

Thor grinned. “I am amazing, it’s true.”

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