“How did you get to it?” I asked.
“Pablo at the gas station has the key to Crow’s shop. I went in the front door and out the back. But don’t blame him. He didn’t know what I was doing. I told him I was going to check Crow’s shop for him while he was gone. I told him Crow said it was okay.”
So that would be breaking and entering. Now on to the burglary. “How did you transport the powers?”
“What do you mean?”
“Most people—creatures or otherwise—can’t touch the powers. How did you physically carry them?”
“An empty water bottle.”
“What?”
“A water bottle? It’s what I had handy.”
“You put all the god powers in Ordinary in a water bottle?”
“No, I put Crow’s power in a water bottle.”
“All the powers are missing, Piper.”
“All of them?” She blinked hard, and went a shade of green I hadn’t seen since Jean was in kindergarten and licked the bottom of her shoe on a dare.
During the field trip. To the dairy farm.
I really shouldn’t have been so proud of myself for making her fall for that.
“All of them?” she asked again.
“All of them.”
“I was just trying to get Crow’s.”
“You did,” Myra said. “And you also took the power of every other god in town.”
“Oh, crap.”
Oh crap, indeed.
“I didn’t mean to. You have to believe me. I never meant to take all the powers. Just Crow’s.”
“We believe you,” I said. She opened her mouth and I reached over and patted her hand. She waited, probably expecting words of wisdom or comfort.
“You done screwed up.”
Myra sighed.
Hey, I never said I was good at this kind of thing.
“But,” I said, “there were extenuating circumstances. You aren’t the only one who screwed up. Technically, Crow broke one of Ordinary’s rules. So technically Mithra could be considered correct for stepping in. Though technically, Ordinary is outside his influence and we’d rather he’d let us handle our own business just like all the other gods outside Ordinary do. We have rules for that too. Don’t worry. This could be much worse.”
“He wants to meet you,” Piper blurted out.
“Who?”
“Mithra. I just gave him the powers on my afternoon break. He said he wants to talk to you, Delaney, tomorrow. About the rules. About power. And he wants you to bring Ryder Bailey with you.”
I could not have been more shocked if a fish had suddenly ridden by on a bicycle. With an umbrella hat on its head.
“Ryder?” I finally said. Or thought I did. It came out more like a squeak.
“Did he say why he wanted to see Delaney and Ryder?” Good ol’ Myra. Nothing knocked her off her footing.
“He said it was Delaney’s job to make sure the rules of Ordinary aren’t broken. And he said he has questions he wants Ryder to answer.”
“Ryder doesn’t even know about the gods,” I said. “Or god power. He wouldn’t believe Mithra is a god. He is so not coming with me. No. No way.”
“I promised he would,” Piper said.
I groaned. “Why?”
“I thought he knew! He’s on the police force, and Myra and Jean and Roy know. Why wouldn’t he know about the gods?”
“Because we don’t share that kind of information easily,” Myra said.
“This is officially worse,” I muttered.
We were all silent.
“Has this ever happened before?” Piper asked in a small voice. “Has anyone ever screwed up as badly as this?”
“Oh, honey.” I gave her a firm pat on her hand. “You have no idea.”
“Right. Now. We’ll need a few more details.” Myra pulled out her tablet and tapped it to life. “About everything.”
“Then what?” Piper asked.
“Then we fix this,” I said with a lot more confidence than I felt.
Chapter 12
We went over the details of the water-bottle power heist for two hours. When she did it, who she talked to, how long she carried the power around like the most dangerous energy drink in the universe.
Piper insisted she went to meet with Mithra at the casino this afternoon and handed over the powers. I believed her. Myra took notes. We asked her every question in different ways about a dozen times. Got the same answers.
So when Myra wanted to follow me to my house so we could go over “just a few more details,” I told her no. I also suggested she go home, get some sleep, and that we’d worry about it in the morning.
I may have mentioned I spilled some of Ordinary’s secrets to Ryder. Not the god secrets. Or the creature secrets. But definitely the vampire secrets. Well, some of them.
Myra may have read me the riot act about our duty as Reeds and how keeping secrets was a huge part of those duties. And reminded me of Ryder’s possible involvement in murder, and my possible inability to think he was a suspect because of my heart’s definite involvement with him.
It was almost four o’clock in the morning by the time she was done going through all the reasons I shouldn’t have told Ryder there were vampires in town. She also wasn’t happy that I’d told him he’d have to get through me if he and his vampire-hunter buddies, or his vampire-friendly buddies, wanted near any kind of creature in this town.
I’d told her I thought it was worth the risk for him to know if it got us closer to Sven’s killer. She wasn’t mollified.
She had ended the conversation with, “I wish you didn’t love him, Delaney.”
“Because it puts Ordinary in danger?” I asked, rubbing my fingertips over my scalp and yawning. I was too tired to argue over the “love” part of her statement. Maybe even too tired to kid myself about that any more.
I loved him.
Stupid heart.
“No, you idiot. Because it puts you in danger.” Then she’d reached over and given me a quick, tight hug. “Sleep. I’ll see you later. Let’s think this over. Maybe we’ll both make better decisions in the morning. Or afternoon.”
Which was why I was surprised to be stumbling out of my bed and into my living room to answer the door at seven a.m.
The door wasn’t locked—I still wasn’t convinced I needed that kind of security in this town. I yanked it open. “This isn’t later. This is still way too earlier.”
“All right then,” Ryder said as his eyes took a quick detour to check out what I was wearing. “Huffing the hand-sanitizer a little early, aren’t we?”
I was suddenly very awake. And suddenly very aware I was wearing an over-sized T-shirt.
And nothing else.
“Ryder? You’re...um...you’re not Myra.”
He leaned a little back on one hip, his hand in his front pocket and the devil in his eyes. “Nope.”
“Why are you here? Is there an emergency?”
“I’m here to apologize, which, frankly, might be now a dozen times I’ve done that in the last few days. I’m thinking of asking for a cumulative discount on your forgiveness.”
“Apologize? What for this time? No, wait. Don’t answer.” I dragged my fingers through my hair which, oops, made the shirt lift a little, then pressed fingertips against my eyes. “All right. I’m gonna need coffee for this. And pants. Come on in.”