Page 78 of The Best Trick

Zeus snorted, but they were doing just that, acting confident and relaxed and in control, like they owned the place, like a sign to Alfred that he’d be a fool to oppose us because that’s how sure we were.

A sign to Alfred, but also to the universe. We owned this place, this situation, this reality.

I grabbed a nice big handful of Cheetos and positioned myself on Thor's lap, crossing my legs, the perfect complement to his leisure picture. Everything under control. Doing my part.

Thor gave me a gun to hold.

There was a bang of metal in the bathroom, followed by a crash. We heard Alfred say, “What the fuck!” Then Odin dragged him out, dripping wet, clutching a towel to himself. Odin sat him down on a hard wooden chair that Zeus had put in the middle of the living room.

“You people are going to pay for this,” Alfred warned, staring down Odin and his gun. “You’re gonna wanna stop this right now, because you’re gonna pay for it and you’re not going to like it.”

“Pay how?” Zeus asked, one leg dangling over the couch arm. “You gonna hunt us? You gonna kill us?”

Odin grabbed a roll of duct tape from his pack and proceeded to tape Alfred to the chair. “Some six-mile run, Alfred. Do you always lie on social media?”

“I'm telling you, I don't have Doris, and I have no idea where she is. That's the point of this whole thing—to find her!”

I kept my piece trained on Alfred. It wasn’t the best shooting position, being on Thor’s lap—you always wanted to go from a stable foundation—but I felt it added to our badass unpredictability. “And if you have hurt that dog,” I warned, “if you hurt one hair on that dog’s head or anywhere else, you’ll be the one to pay. Spoiler alert: it will involve Odin ripping your intestines out like unraveling a ball of yarn from my grandmother’s knitting basket!”

“Like unraveling rope,” Odin amended, ripping off another piece of tape and securing Alfred’s arm. Odin had made that threat before, and he preferred the idea of rope, but I preferred the folksiness of knitting yarn.

“We’ll go with really thick yarn from the basket of a very disturbed grandmother,” I said.

Odin continued on his work, growling, and he also seemed to be watching Alfred’s face really carefully. “We’re gonna finish up here and then ask you a few questions.”

“Is this one stern?” Zeus asked. “Stern enough…you know.”

“No!” I said. “Definitely not.”

“You sure? He wants to kill us,” Zeus said. “That’s pretty stern.”

I shook my head. “Forget it.”

“Suit yourself,” Thor said.

“Oh, I always do, boys,” I said, all witchy. “I always do.”

Alfred frowned. “What is this?”

“Shut up,” Odin said, finishing up on the other arm.

“Denko is going to be so pissed when he finds out you have his dog,” Thor rumbled.

“If you tell us now,” Zeus began, “before we have to get it out of you, if you save us that trouble, we won't tell Denko you’re the one who took her.”

“I didn’t take her!” Alfred said.

“Quite the offer,” Thor said to Zeus, ignoring Alfred’s protests.

“Yeah,” I said with a big frown, like I was so disappointed. “I mean…what about…” I made a knitting motion, playing the crazy gang moll, which was fun, but I really, really wished he would just tell us.

Odin finished up and stood. “I'd settle for the location and combination to the safe.”

“I don’t have one,” Alfred barked.

Odin went to the side of the room. He slid a picture aside. Nothing but bare wall. He pounded the area with his fist, then he toed the floorboard, then turned up a corner of the area rug. “Bingo,” he said. “Zeus, you want to get me a blade?”

Zeus rose up with a heave and pulled a blade from the vicinity of his boot, gleaming silver in the light. He handed it to Odin, who pried up a square of parquet flooring to reveal the door to a safe that had been set in there, face up. He turned to Alfred. “You know I’ll get in. Not like it’s a Fenton Furst.”

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