American Gods by Neil Gaiman Read Free Book Online Page B

it?”
    “Taste it.”
    The drink was a tawny golden color. Shadow took a sip, tasting an odd blend of sour and sweet on his tongue. He could taste the alcohol underneath, and a strange blend of flavors. It reminded him a little of prison hooch, brewed in a garbage bag from rotten fruit and bread and sugar and water, but it was smoother, sweeter, infinitely stranger.
    “Okay,” said Shadow. “I tasted it. What was it?”
    “Mead,” said Wednesday. “Honey wine. The drink of heroes. The drink of the gods.”
    Shadow took another tentative sip. Yes, he could taste the honey, he decided. That was one of the tastes. “Tastes kinda like pickle juice,” he said. “Sweet pickle juice wine.”
    “Tastes like a drunken diabetic’s piss,” agreed Wednesday. “I hate the stuff.”
    “Then why did you bring it for me?” asked Shadow, reasonably.
    Wednesday stared at Shadow with his mismatched eyes. One of them, Shadow decided, was a glass eye, but he could not decide which one. “I brought you mead to drink because it’s traditional. And right now we need all the tradition we can get. It seals our bargain.”
    “We haven’t made a bargain.”
    “Sure we have. You work for me. You protect me. You help me. You transport me from place to place. You investigate, from time to time—go places and ask questions for me. You run errands. In an emergency, but only in an emergency, you hurt people who need to be hurt. In the unlikely event of my death, you will hold my vigil. And in return I shall make sure that your needs are adequately taken care of.”
    “He’s hustling you,” said Mad Sweeney, rubbing his bristly ginger beard. “He’s a hustler.”
    “Damn straight I’m a hustler,” said Wednesday. “That’s why I need someone to look out for my best interests.”
    The song on the jukebox ended, and for a moment the bar fell quiet, every conversation at a lull.
    “Someone once told me that you only get those everybody-shuts-up-at-once moments at twenty past or twenty to the hour,” said Shadow.
    Sweeney pointed to the clock above the bar, held in the massive and indifferent jaws of a stuffed alligator head. The time was 11:20.
    “There,” said Shadow. “Damned if I know why that happens.”
    “I know why,” said Wednesday.
    “You going to share with the group?”
    “I may tell you, one day, yes. Or I may not. Drink your mead.”
    Shadow knocked the rest of the mead back in one long gulp. “It might be better over ice,” he said.
    “Or it might not,” said Wednesday. “It’s terrible stuff.”
    “That it is,” agreed Mad Sweeney. “You’ll excuse me for a moment, gentlemen, but I find myself in deep and urgent need of a lengthy piss.” He stood up and walked away, an impossibly tall man. He had to be almost seven feet tall, decided Shadow.
    A waitress wiped a cloth across the table and took their empty plates. She emptied Sweeney’s ashtray, and asked if they would like to order any more drinks. Wednesday told her to bring the same again for everyone, although this time Shadow’s mead was to be on the rocks. “Anyway,” said Wednesday, “that’s what I need of you, if you’re working for me. Which, of course, you are.”
    “That’s what you want,” said Shadow. “Would you like to know what I want?”
    “Nothing could make me happier.”
    The waitress brought the drink. Shadow sipped his mead on the rocks. The ice did not help—if anything it sharpened the sourness, andmade the taste linger in the mouth after the mead was swallowed. However, Shadow consoled himself, it did not taste particularly alcoholic. He was not ready to be drunk. Not yet.
    He took a deep breath.
    “Okay,” said Shadow. “My life, which for three years has been a long way from being the greatest life there has ever been, just took a distinct and sudden turn for the worse. Now there are a few things I need to do. I want to go to Laura’s funeral. I want to say goodbye. After that, if you still need me, I