Salim reaches over the seat and gently rests his hand on his shoulder to wake him.
They get stuck in traffic and the taxi driver falls asleep. The taxi driver apologizes as he has been driving for 30 hours straight and Salim tells him about how he just arrived in America a week ago and is selling worthless trinkets to people who won't see him. The taxi driver speaks Arabic and they discuss Oman, where Salim is from, chatting about the Lost City of Towers, which vanished thousands of years prior. He walks out into the night rain and hails a cab, giving directions to his hotel. He asks if he can make an appointment for tomorrow and the assistant tells him he has to phone for appointments. He sits all day long at a company called Panglobal, waiting to meet with Mr.
Salim is a young Muslim man selling trinkets and souvenirs for his brother-in-law. The police come and one of the officers mentions to Sweeney that it is "some crazy bad luck." Sweeney begins looking frantically through his pockets, tossing gold coins everywhere as he discovers one is missing. A pipe flies through the air, stabbing into their car's windshield and impaling the friendly driver's head. The truck in front of them has a blowout and a load of pipes in the back come loose. He leaves and is walking along a highway when a friendly man pulls over and offers him a ride. The beer bottle in Sweeney's hand explodes and it surprises Sweeney. Sweeney tells her to not push her luck by trying to shoot at him because it won't work but she does anyway. Wednesday enters the room and asks Shadow if he wants some coffee before they go rob a bank.Īt Jack's Crocodile Bar, Jack enters the bathroom with a shotgun to evict Mad Sweeney. Shadow wakes up the next morning and looks out the window to see there is no fire escape but in his pocket is a silver coin. In the apartment, Shadow wins the checkers game against Czernobog and Czernobog agrees to go with Wednesday to Wisconsin then he will kill Shadow. Zorya Vechernyaya pulls away just as it starts raining and asks him angrily what he has done. He gives her a kiss to remind her of when they were young. They go outside for a walk in the night and Zorya Vechernyaya warns Wednesday that what he is doing will kill him this time. She tells him that whatever he is trying to do, he will lose. He pours his coffee grounds onto his saucer and asks her to read his fortune. He comments on how she has learned to live with less but she is deserving of better. Wednesday enters Zorya Vechernyaya's bedroom where she is getting ready for bed. Czernobog agrees to the terms and they start playing checkers. If Czernobog wins, he gets two swings at sunrise. Wednesday and Czernobog still gets his one hammer hit after they're done. If Shadow wins, then Czernobog has to go with him and Mr. He tries to convince Czernobog to play one more game of checkers with him by pointing out that Czernobog is old and weaker and he might need two hits on the head in order to successfully kill Shadow. Shadow wakes up and goes into Czernobog's room. She gives it to him, telling him it is protection but not as strong as the sun protection he was given once before. They kiss and she proceeds to tell him to "take the moon." He doesn't understand what she means so she does it for him and plucks it out of the night sky. She asks if he sold his head to Czernobog and tells him she can help him in exchange for a kiss. She reads Shadow's palm and says he has nothing because he believes in nothing. She explains to him that she and her sisters monitor the sky day and night to make sure the "bad thing chained up in those stars" does not escape and eat up everything. Zorya Polunochnaya is star-gazing, keeping watch over Odin's Wain and the Great Bear.
He discovers the living room window open and climbs out onto the fire-escape and up to the roof. Shadow awakens in the middle of the night in Czernobog's and the Zoryas' apartment. Fadil pauses at the entrance expressing momentary doubt, and her cat pushes her through the doorway anyway. He points to the center pillar and a door opens. She tells him he is kind and asks him to choose for her. He leads her to five pillars, each of which will lead to one of the many worlds of the Du'at, and tells her to choose. Fadil tells him she tried her best and Anubis replies that her best is good. He removes her heart and places it on the left scale to see if she used her heart well. They sit down in front of his scales and he places a large feather on the right scale. She follows him to her fire escape and up a seemingly never-ending staircase until they reach a sandy desert. Fadil that she has died and he has come to take her to the Afterlife because of her belief in her Tita's stories. Fadil cooks dinner for visiting family when there is a knock on the door.