Death and Relaxation by Devon Monk Page A

that?”
    Thanatos had slipped the papers out of the envelope and held them pinched between just his forefinger and thumb as if they were made of dirt and shame. He was so not a frou-frou drink kind of guy.
    “Oh, I definitely think I do need whip. All it can hold.”
    I paid and lingered while she fulfilled the order. Then I strolled back over to the booth with both coffees.
    “Here you go.” I plunked the frosty cup of sugar-high whipped-cream overkill in front of him. The barista had really outdone herself and added shaved chocolate curls, a ruby-red cherry, and a bright pink straw.
    Thanatos paused. His gaze flicked to the caffeinated monstrosity, flicked to my humble cup of plain black coffee, then up to my face.
    “This is a beverage?”
    “I am assured it is.” I sat down again and took a sip of my coffee.
    He seemed to consider the situation and make a decision.
    Thanatos drew the straw to his lips with one finger, and, still staring me in the eye as if this were a game of Drink-the-Poison, took a sip.
    Okay. I had to admit it was all kinds of satisfying to watch Death suck on a whipped cream and coffee milkshake through a pink straw. Totally ruined that dangerous vibe he’d been throwing.
    He straightened and went back to reading through the contract without comment.
    “Well?” I asked after a second or two.
    He raised one dark eyebrow. “Yes?”
    “Do you like it? The coffee?”
    He still wasn’t looking at me. “Not at all.”
    Still, at least he had tried it. It was a good sign that he might actually want to give the whole vacation thing—the actually being a mortal thing—a try.
    Because vacationing for a god wasn’t quite the same as vacationing for a mortal or creature. For one thing, the god had to give up his or her power for the entire time they were in Ordinary. For another thing, while any god was vacationing and powerless, he or she would be mostly human, and therefore could be injured, and even worse: killed.
    “Where will my…personal effects be stored?” he asked archly.
    “Personal effects?”
    “Power, Reed Daughter. Where will the power of Death be stored?” He looked over at me as if he were peering down over glasses, even though he wasn’t wearing any.
    “That changes each year. One god in town has the right to keep the powers under lock for one year, then that responsibility changes to a different god.”
    “And who currently is responsible for storing powers?”
    I shook my head. “You either agree or disagree to the terms. I will tell you more when we’ve both signed the contract.”
    I took another sip of coffee, which was throwing off a lot more steam than it should. Thanatos’s personal space was a cold one. But I refused to rub my hands over my arms even though I had goose bumps. He could give me the stink eye for as long as he wanted. I wasn’t intimidated by him or his power.
    Much.
    Even though a power was locked away while a deity vacationed, it didn’t mean the power wasn’t still in operation.
    I’d gone fishing with Chronos when I was about eleven and asked him why the clocks didn’t stop while he stayed in Ordinary. He’d chuckled, offered up some philosophical doublespeak about time not being a linear concept, and threw in some mathematical equations that had soared right over my head.
    And then, when he realized I wasn’t following his line of reason, he told me the powers of the gods continued to exist, even when the god wasn’t actively wielding the power. There wasn’t a way to turn it off. Instead, power ran on a sort of autopilot while the gods vacationed.
    Sometimes that autopilot was easy and everything went as it should. Sometimes, a power left alone without god supervision caused disasters, floods, earthquakes, war, and worse.
    I hoped Death had a really good autopilot set on his power.
    That way, even though Thanatos might stay in Ordinary for a while, it didn’t mean the world would be death-free, or suddenly suffer from massive