Chapter 2
“He’s dead,” Myra said.
I still stood half out of the Jeep, my fast food bag in one hand. My heart thumped hard and thick in my chest draining blood from my brain.
Ryder?
“Who?”
Thunder walloped the air, rolling across the edges of the horizon as if upset to be leaving some part of town undrowned.
“Sven Rossi.”
I blinked, rain running down my face. It took me a second or two to remember how to breathe while I processed what she’d just said. Another second to swallow and pull my fear in tight.
Ryder was fine. Ryder wasn’t dead.
Why had I automatically assumed he was hurt?
Why had everything in my body gone cold when I thought that was true?
Love, my heart whispered. You love him.
I couldn’t love a guy who’d dumped me after our first date. That was pretty much the hint of all hints that he really wasn’t all that into me.
“Delaney?” Myra put her hand on my arm. Ever since I’d been shot, she hovered more, touched me more. As if I wouldn’t be there when she reached out. As if she were afraid to lose me.
The bullet hadn’t just changed my life. I wasn’t the only one who had nightmares. Even our youngest sister, Jean, hadn’t been able to joke away the bullet I’d taken at point blank.
I think both of my sisters seeing me get shot had only made it worse.
For all of us.
“I’m fine. Sven?” I asked. “When? How?” Sven was the newest vampire to Ordinary. He had been brought into Old Rossi’s fold to become the latest cousin/distant relative/in-law/half-nephew of the rag-tag vampire clan. He worked—used to work—as a bouncer over at Hera’s bar: Mom’s Bar and Grill.
“Just got the call. Jean answered since I was tied up with Mrs. Yates’ penguin.”
“Where was it this time?”
“Attached to the church tower weather vane.”
“We couldn’t leave it up there?”
“Not with the thorny crown and cross they tied it to.”
Mrs. Yate’s penguin was a concrete yard ornament the local high school kids took all sorts of pleasure in harassing. We got a call almost weekly about it being found in some odd or compromising situation.
It was petty mischief that could have been stopped if Mrs. Yates relocated the penguin to her back yard, or better yet her garage, but she stubbornly plunked it down in the exact same place in her front yard every single time we brought it back to her.
Within a week or so, the penguin would be absconded with and taken on an adventure. It was getting to be so well known around town that someone outside of Ordinary had started a blog about it, asking for pictures of the penguin in strange locations. The pictures had flooded in, and so had the page views.
The penguin was quickly becoming Ordinary’s most famous citizen.
“What happened? Where was Sven?” My brain had finally shaken off my initial shock. I strode to the station, Crow already ahead of me, umbrella hat flared over his shoulders.
Myra frowned, just as confused at his fashion choice as I was.
“We found his body about an hour ago.”
“Who called it in?”
“Apocalypse Pablo. Said he thought someone was breaking into the shed on the back of the gas station property. Thought it might be zombies and wanted to sell them a window washer? Not sure how that makes sense, but it’s what he said. I told him to keep an eye on the shed and stay away from it until I could get there. I didn’t...I didn’t think it would be anything more than maybe a nest of raccoons.”
Crow opened the door and held it as we walked in past him.
“Did you go out there alone?”
“Yes. Ryder’s been out of town for a couple days.”
“I didn’t know that.”
She shrugged off her coat and hung it on the hook where it could drip. Doing so made her sleeves ruck up to reveal dark bruises on her forearms.
Huh.
“He had a job to check on up in Washington. Said he’d be back later this week.”
I frowned. He had just called me this morning. “Did he say where, exactly?”
“No. Why?”
“No reason.” I pulled off my coat and hung it beside hers. I flicked my gaze toward her arm, then raised an eyebrow, silently asking what those bruises were about. She hurriedly pulled her sleeve down and ignored me.
Weird.
“Tell me about Sven. Crow, stay here in the lobby and don’t break any more of Ordinary’s rules. And take off that ridiculous hat.”
He popped a hash brown in his mouth. “This hat is going to catch on. I promise you that.”
“Don’t promise me that.”
“Umbrella hats are going to be all the rage.”
“Oh, I’m already feeling the rage.” I flipped my fingers in what I hoped was mime for “kill it with fire.”
Myra walked with me over to my desk. It was out of the way, but I still had a view of the lobby.
“Why is Crow here?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you after you fill me in on Sven. You found him in the shed?”
I sat at my desk, the take-out coffee cooling between my palms. She pulled a chair over so we could both keep an eye on the lobby and Crow, yet still lean in close enough we could keep our voices down.
“I went out there because Apocalypse Pablo said the door was open and he’d kept it locked. When I got there, the lock was broken off the shed door. Too much rain to see any footsteps—it’s practically a swamp back there behind the gas station. I didn’t see blood, no scuffs. Plenty of mud but it’s been raining non-stop.”
I took a gulp of coffee, nodded.
“The shed has an old tractor in it, some tools, but I could finally see a streak of mud through the dust on the floor that led to the back corner. I found him under a blanket. Shot.”
“Still bleeding?” Cut a vampire and chances were he wouldn’t bleed. Kill a vampire, and chances were the thick, slow blood that moved sluggishly through his veins was going to make an appearance.
“Shot through the middle of his forehead.”
The horror of what she was saying clamored there in the back of my brain, but I didn’t have time for it right now.
I liked—had liked Sven. He seemed to fit into the town and the vampires here with ease, and had made friends with pretty much anyone he met.
I didn’t know anyone who would have wanted him dead. But he had come here after living a full, and probably overly-long, life outside this town. I didn’t know what had happened in his past, what he had done, what had been done to him in the years before he decided to move to Ordinary.
It was agreed that Old Rossi took care of vetting the fangers who became a part of Ordinary. I knew he was very thorough in checking their backgrounds.
I trusted Old Rossi as my father had before me and my grandfather had before him. Old Rossi knew which vampires to bring into Ordinary, and which to keep far, far away.
But I’d never had a vampire show up dead inside the town’s boundaries. Outside the town’s boundaries either for that matter.
“One bullet is not enough to take down a vampire.”
She rubbed her thumb over her middle finger, a nervous habit I hadn’t seen her do for a while. “It wasn’t just the bullet.”
“Okay?”
“There were symbols drawn on his chest and both palms.”
“What kind of symbols?”
“I’ve never seen them before.”
That wasn’t a good sign. Myra was the daughter Dad had bequeathed all of his books and journals to. She had been steadily reading her way through them for over a year.
“What were they drawn with?”
“Blood.”
“Excuse me?”
This was a vacation town. A sleepy beach town where little kids built sand castles and our highest repeat crime was expired parking meters. We didn’t do corpses covered in weird symbols drawn in blood.
“Blood,” I said.
“Blood. Looked like it to me. If it isn’t, we’ll know soon. I had the body delivered to Old Rossi.”
“Not the morgue?”
“You think someone other than Old Rossi would know more about this? How to kill a vampire with only a bullet and some squiggly lines?”
She was right. Old Rossi had been in town for several hundred years. Back when it was just a spot where gods had chosen to vacation and creatures had decided to settle. As I understood it, he had been born mortal and done a stint as a soldier. I didn’t know which war.
The story of how Rossi had been turned had only been pried out of him once, by some great-grand so far in my past I’d lost count of how many generations back. That story had been passed down in oral tradition, details lost over the years. By the time my father heard it, then passed it on to me, the names and dates had all been blurred by voices long dead.
The Old Rossi I knew was the same man my father and grandfather knew. To all outward appearances, he was a middle-aged, easy-going hippy sort of guy who ran naked meditation sessions and crystal-powered yoga raves.
He had, as far as I knew, left his long-ago-past life in his long ago past.
Rossi would know every way a vampire could be killed. Myra was right to have sent Sven’s body to him.
“Have you heard from him yet?”
“He wants to see you.”
I took another drink of coffee. “At his place?”
“You’re not going alone.”
“I won’t. But we have something else we need to deal with.”
“Crow?”
Thunder rumbled and a hard flash of yellow sunlight broke the clouds before being swallowed down.
Crow crumpled the paper bag and tossed it in the lobby garbage can. He walked a slow circle inside the small lobby, umbrella hat tucked under his arm, then stopped in front of the windows so he could stare out at the storm. His hands were shoved in his coat pockets, the beanie still tight on his head. I didn’t think he’d run off, but I wasn’t sure what he’d do now that he was officially on all the gods’ shit lists.
“He lost the powers.”
Myra blinked. Her eyes were wider than mine, a lighter blue beneath the straight dark bangs of her pin-up style. Whereas I had more of a runner’s build like our dad, she had inherited all of Mom’s curves. Even our unflattering uniforms couldn’t hide her figure.
I tended to tan under my freckles, but she had pale skin. Right now she went down another shade.
“He lost what powers?”
Crow, in the waiting area, snorted. I threw him a glare, but he was still staring out the window. He rocked up on the toes of his feet then down, up and down, in a nervous movement that looked like he wished he could run out of here.
Not on my watch.
“The gods’ powers.”
“All of them?”
“All of them.”
She stared at the lobby, lines pulling between her eyebrows. “How the hell did you do that, Crow?”
“Not on purpose. Not consciously either, which pisses me off, you know? What a great trick this would be...well, is, I suppose. But I didn’t think of it. It’s irritating to be out tricked.”
“How did you even...how does anyone lose all the powers? That’s never happened. That shouldn’t even be something that can happen.”
“We know,” I said.
“So that’s the emergency meeting of deities?” she asked.
“Yeah, he was smart enough to get everyone on board as soon as he found out they were gone.”
“Well...” he hedged.
“You did call us as soon as you knew they were gone?” I asked.
“Almost as soon as I knew.”
“How long did you wait?”
His gaze drifted up to the ceiling. “Maybe an hour, tops? I called a few gods first. Thought they were screwing with me. Asked them if they’d taken them.”
“Who did you ask?” Myra moved over to her desk, pulling out a pad and pen.
“Death, first.”
“Why Death?” she asked.
“He’s new here. I’ve tricked him out of more than one soul over the years. I mean...a lot. He might look refined and restrained and smart, but he’s fallen for the same bait and switches for centuries. I thought he might want to get back at me for some of that.”
“And?” I asked, trying to connect the image I had of Thanatos—humorless and infinitely more interested in the little details of living a mortal life—with the idea of pulling a prank.
Could not brain my way through that.
“He said he’d never break contract with Ordinary in such a way.”
“You believed him?”
He nodded. “Death has a thing about contracts. Then I called Eris, Ares, Bishamon, Apep.”
Goddess of discord, God of war, God of warriors and punisher of evil-doers, and God of chaos. Looked like he’d covered most of the obvious bases.
“Nopes all around. So I called Poseidon.”
“What?” Myra asked. “Why Poseidon?”
“Because when doesn’t he screw up? Do you know how many times Poseidon has died? Not just died, but died stupidly and accidentally?”
Not that most people made it a point to die purposely, but he had a point. Poseidon’s power had changed hands five times in recent history because the mortal—both males and females—who tended to pick up that power, were always too confident about their ability not to drown.
Then they always drowned.
Just three months ago during the Rhubarb Rally, Poseidon had almost drowned when drinking a toast to the blessing of the Rhubarb Regatta.
But dying a lot didn’t mean Poseidon was after the god powers. Nor that he had the ability to pick up all of them, move them, and find a place to hide them.
“Seems a little out of Poseidon’s M.O.,” I said.
Crow rolled his eyes. “Ask any of the gods. Most of our biggest disasters have happened because of Poseidon.”
“He’s the god of the sea,” Myra said. “I’m not convinced he’d want anything to do with stealing god powers.”
“Yes, well you haven’t been alive for several thousand years. God of the sea is klutz of the universe. He probably tripped and somehow fell on the oven latch and let all the powers loose and doesn’t want to get blamed for it. Trust me, he’s a suspect.”
“Trust you?” I put down my coffee. “Because you’ve given us so many reasons to do so?”
“Hey, I helped you find your ex-exboyfriend so you could give him Heimdall’s power.”
“He’s still an ex-boyfriend, and you picking up your power to help me find him is what got you into this mess. You should have just left Ordinary for a year. Like the rules say. Like Hera and Thor did. Like everyone does.”
“But I like it here,” he whined.
“Of course you like it here—it’s a vacation.”
“What kind of consequences are we going to have to deal with from him not picking up his power?” Myra asked.
“Good question,” I said. “If we’re lucky—and we never are—maybe all that will happen is the powers will have been stolen.”
She was still frowning. “It’s in our job description to mete out punishment to the god who breaks the rules of Ordinary.”
“Is there precedence for this sort of thing?”
“No,” Crow said.
“I’m sure there is,” Myra said. “But I’d have to look it up.”
“Do that.”
“What?” Crow said. “I thought you were my friends.”
I raised my eyebrows at his fake outrage. “We are. But like it or not, once we find the powers, you’re going to have to deal with the consequences. We have a job to do—look after Ordinary and make sure everyone plays by the rules. And you do have a job to do, Crow. A power to wield. You can’t ignore it for eternity.”
“You’re not going to kick me out of Ordinary are you, Delaney? Throw me off of my Native land.”
Yes, the mortal Crow had been born full-blood Siletz. Technically, well, and literally, this was his Native land. But the rules of Ordinary applied to all our citizens, no matter their race.
“I’m going to follow the rules laid down by our ancestors. Just like you should have.” I was getting tired of telling him this. I started toward the door. “Myra, stay here until Roy comes in. Keep an eye on Crow. I’m headed out to talk to Rossi.”
“I thought I was supposed to stay with you,” Crow said.
“No, you’re supposed to stay under our custody. Make yourself useful around here and handle some of our filing or something.”
“Filing? You do know I’m an artist, right? I’ve won awards. I hire people to handle my paperwork.”
“I’m sorry. I assumed you wanted to be useful. How about you spend the day in the holding cell.” I glanced at Myra. “That position’s open for important artists, right?”
“Always.”
“Fine.” He gave a dramatic sigh. “I’ll do your menial labor. But don’t think I won’t talk to the tribe about this. Using a Native boy to do your grunt work. I’m feeling oppressed.”
Myra gave him a bland look. “Please. Wanna talk oppressed? Woman in a man’s world here.” She pointed to the badge on her chest. “I’ll be happy to put my three-quarter pay and glass ceiling against your cut of the casino profit, successful business ownership, and godhood.”
He grinned. “Gotta love that Reed spirit. Marry me? I’m a successful business man, you know. We can be oppressed together.”
Myra rolled her eyes. Then, to me: “Call when you get to Rossi’s. Call when you leave. I’ll get hold of Jean so she knows what’s going on.”
“Okay. You got Apocalypse Pablo’s statement?”
“Yep. It’ll be on your desk by the time you get back.
“Good.”
I gathered up my coat and a beanie, shivering a little as I slid into the cool and damp of them.
“I could loan you my hat,” Crow offered.
“No.”
“It will keep you dry. C’mon. You know you want it.”
“I don’t want it. No one wants it. It’s stupid and isn’t even a funny joke.”
“Fine. You obviously don’t understand fashion. Have fun being wet and so last year, beanie head.”
I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him. “Bye, Myra. Don’t shoot him anywhere he’d sue us for.”
“Got it,” she said.
I ducked out into the rain and trudged to the Jeep.