Well, well. That was unexpected.
“There are rules in Ordinary. Laws set by the gods and mortals who have been here long before me. I have to follow those rules, Piper, because those rules were set into place to keep everyone—all the mortals, all the gods, all the creatures of Ordinary—safe. Are you in danger?”
She glanced up at me, her eyes wide, two bright spots of color flaming her cheeks.
“I’ll take that as a yes, you’re in danger.”
I pushed my pie to one side, which was a shame since I’d only gotten through half of it and it was really good pie. “Okay. I’m here to help you. Whatever it is, I will do my best to make sure the laws of Ordinary protect you. My sisters and I will do our best to protect you. I swear it on my family’s name. Talk to me, Piper. I promise I’ll make this better.”
She bit the inside of her cheek, and from how stiff she held her shoulders this wasn’t an easy decision for her.
“I’m...I’m not just human.”
I thought we’d already established that. But I nodded encouragingly.
“My mother was human. And...um...my father wasn’t.”
So far so good. I nodded again and gave her a little smile.
“My father is a god.”
Okay, I’d been ready for almost anything out of her mouth. And yes, Jame had said she smelled like a god. But for some reason I hadn’t thought she could be the child of a god. A demigod. I’d never met a demigod. We didn’t have any in town. I wasn’t even sure what the rules were for a demigod to live in town. Were they half on vacation? Did they have to carry a part-time mortal job? Did they have power? Was that power great enough to need to be stored away? Half stored away?
I couldn’t hear a god power in her. If she had a power, she wasn’t currently carrying it.
“Terrific!” I said.
She startled.
That came out with a little more force than I’d expected. “Good. Good,” I said a little more quietly. “You’re a demigod. You do know you are wildly over-qualified for diner work.”
She gave me a hesitant smile. “It pays the bills. And the free meals aren’t so bad.”
“You’re really good at it, by the way.”
“This isn’t my first time on the floor. But I like this place.” She looked around at the diner and I wondered what she saw in it. The Blue Owl had been remodeled several times over the years and had been several kinds of eateries. They had expanded their hours for the summer, and seemed to be doing brisk enough business with their 1950s decor and atmosphere.
But I thought maybe it wasn’t just a diner Piper was looking at. It was a moment in time, an era that no longer existed. An era in which she had been young.
“Do you know who took the god powers?”
She nodded and turned her attention back to me. “About that.” She twisted fingers together and placed both hands on the table, wrists close together as if she were already in handcuffs. “I know who. And I know why.”
“Good,” I said. “That’s perfect. Can you tell me who first?”
“Yes. Me.”
It was really good that I wasn’t drinking tea at the moment because I would have spit it out. “Wow. Okay. So that’s why you were looking for amnesty. Right. Can you tell me why you did that?”
“I’m not proud of what I did.”
“But?”
“I...owed someone. And I didn’t owe them money.”
“Who?”
“A god.”
“You’re going to have to narrow that down a bit.”
“Mithra.”
God of contracts. Judiciary. All-seeing protector of truth. Not surprisingly, someone who had never vacationed in Ordinary.
“You owed Mithra the powers? All the god powers in town?”
“What? No! No. I owed him my life.”
“He was blackmailing you? Was he blackmailing you? Why was he blackmailing you?”
She tipped her chin up and I saw the strength of her. Definitely demigod. I didn’t know how I had missed it before.
“He negotiated the situation between my father and mother. For my life. He was the only one who cared. The only one who helped when my mother needed help.”
I inhaled and a low, throbbing headache took up residence behind my eyes. Maybe I had a skewed perspective on gods—okay, certainly I had a skewed perspective. But sometimes getting a god involved in a mortal matter only made things worse.
Surprisingly, mortals were generally pretty good at getting out of messes on their own.
“Okay, I think you need to take it from the top. Which god is your father?”
“Poseidon.”
I bit my teeth on a groan. Of course it was Poseidon. The god who couldn’t even vacation without killing himself over it. Crow would be giving me a big fat told-you-so right now.
“How many years ago was that?”
“Seventy-six. He met my mother while he was vacationing here. She was the daughter of the grocer.”
I did some math. Piper looked like she was in her early thirties, not well past retirement age. Poseidon had a habit of dying while vacationing in Ordinary, and the current Poseidon was only a few years into his godhood. So the Poseidon who was her father would have been in town when my grandpa was acting as the bridge for god powers.
I really wished Myra were here since she kept track of the history better than I did.
I glanced over at the door. And wouldn’t you know it? Myra strolled up and knocked quietly on the glass.
Just when she was needed most. I really wish I had that gift.
Piper looked less impressed. “What is she doing here? Did you call her? Are you arresting me? Is she arresting me?”
“Settle down. No one’s arresting you.” I stood and walked over to the door. It wasn’t locked because the diner was never closed, but it was easy to forget that in our closed-by-eight-o’clock town. I opened it for Myra and started back to the table. Piper had slid out of the chair and was standing with her arms wrapped around her ribs like she was trying to protect her vulnerable bits.
“Hey, Piper,” Myra said. “Is everything okay?”
Myra didn’t always give off the warmest vibes, especially when she was in cop mode. Even though she was wearing jeans and a sweat shirt, she was still giving off that stern cop body language.
But out of the three of us Reed girls, I had always thought she was the most nurturing. Her voice, when it softened like that, reminded me of Mom. Myra could soothe a kitten who’d been locked in a tumble drier if she had to.
And thanks to Jean, she’d had to.
Twice.
Maybe that’s why that cat of ours was always getting stuck in weird places: Jean. I made a mental note to grill her about it.
“You said you wouldn’t tell anyone. You said you didn’t.” Piper’s eyes were tight, her eyebrows dipped in a hard scowl.
Whatever trust I’d been building with her over pie was about to be blown to bits if I didn’t say something soothing, something comforting and trustworthy right this minute.
“Piper is Poseidon’s daughter and she’s in a bit of a jam we’re going to try to help her out of.”