“You look worried.” He shrugged as if uncomfortable admitting he was paying that much attention to me.
“It hasn’t stopped raining for five weeks, tourist dollars are way down, we’ve got a fundraiser coming up this week, one month of summer left, and our resident trickster is calling an emergency meeting. A little concern isn’t out of place here.”
“Think he’s leaving?”
“Crow?” He’d been in town all my life. I’d grown up thinking of him as an uncle. It would be a different town without him. “I don’t know.”
“It’d be better without him.”
“Right. Because unleashing the trickster god upon the living world would make our lives any easier. Gods leave here and the first thing they do is remind us that they have their full powers back.”
Thunder broke the sky in half and set off several car alarms. “Point proven,” I said.
“You like him.”
“Crow? The annoying not-my-uncle?”
Odin wore an eyepatch over his left eye. So he had to lean forward and twist to make eye contact with me. “He’s one of your favorites.”
“And you think of Thor as a son.”
“I know Thor,” he said as if that answered everything. “So should you.”
“I know the mortal Thorne Jameson.” I slowed for the light, then turned into the parking lot outside Crow’s glassblowing shop. “Decent voice, good taste in vinyls. Collects rubber duckies. But once he picked up that power and went full god of thunder? I don’t know that guy hardly at all.”
“You know the god power doesn’t completely swallow our personality, nor does the lack erase it.”
“Meaning?”
“Crow is a trickster whether he’s carrying the power of Raven or just blowing balls for tourists.”
I put the Jeep in park, biting back my smile. “You know how that sounds, right?”
He plucked at the dusty sleeve of his flannel shirt. “I meant it how it sounds. Crow isn’t your uncle. He is just very patient.”
“Patient?”
“He knows what he wants, Delaney Reed. And, like a spider, he will wait for his moment to strike.”
I studied his face. No bluff and bluster there. Odin was very serious.
But Odin didn’t exactly get along with the other gods in Ordinary. The rivalry between Zeus and him was on a constant simmer. The petty shots they took at each other’s businesses and life choices kept Aaron, who was Ares the god of war, in a constant state of entertainment.
Other than Thor, who had picked up his power and was therefore unable to return to Ordinary for a year, Odin wasn’t really buddies with the other deities.
“You think Crow’s pulling a long con?”
Odin’s deep blue eye shadowed down darker. A chill washed up my wet, cold skin. Just because gods put down their power didn’t mean there wasn’t an echo, a coal of it caught somewhere deep within them. They were mortal, but they were still the vessels of god power. It made them uncannily charismatic. It made them the flame mortal moths were all too tempted to fly into. And even that tiny spark was enough to make a regular gal like me sit up and take notice.
“Only Crow would know. But he has spent many years becoming your friend, Delaney. Your lifetime. Have you ever asked yourself why?”
“Because he likes me?” I gave him an innocent blink.
He grunted.
“Because I’m likable?” I fluttered my eyelashes. “Possibly even adorable?”
“You are not in the least.” He tried to scowl, but the smile won out.
“Because Crow and all the rest of the gods in town are happy that the family job of keeping this town safe fell into my adorable, capable, likable hands?”
“We’ve had better police chiefs.”
“Since when?”
He shrugged one mountainous shoulder. “I’m sure you weren’t born yet.”
“Well, then I’m the best you’ve had in ages.”
He grunted. “I promised your father I’d keep my eye on you. Since I only have the one, I trust you won’t make me strain it.”
Oh. This was what he was getting at.
My dad had driven off a cliff. Crashed down and died right off a road he’d driven all his life. It had come as a shock to everyone in town: gods, mortals, creatures, and most of all, his daughters.
But I guess sometime before that, he had asked the gods to look after me, to help me as I took on his position as not only the police chief but also as the only person who could transfer god powers to a new mortal if a god died.
I might not be a friend to all the gods in town, but my father...my father had been respected by them. As far as I could tell, the gods had promised to help me if I needed it.
It was annoying. And kind of nice.
“If I need help, I’ll ask.”
He studied me, and I was caught again by that magnetic pull of power echoing in him. Good thing my Reed blood was immune to such things. We Reeds were fire-proof little moths.
“Good.” He nodded once. “Your father was too stubborn. He should have asked for help much sooner. Maybe things would have gone better for him.”
“What does that mean? What things? What better?”
But he was already barging out of the Jeep, the door swinging wide so rain and wind could flip through the paper clipboard in the backseat and rattle the sack of groceries on the floor. The door slammed shut.
I took a deep breath to calm myself. Odin might not have meant anything by that comment except that my dad was stubborn and didn’t know when to ask for help.
Another family trait.
Still, it had seemed like there was something Odin regretted. Some decision my father had made that Odin thought should have been vetted through the gods.
And while it was interesting that Odin was hinting about it, more interesting was that he was telling me about it now.
I wondered if it had something to do with Crow’s emergency.
I flipped up the collar on my coat and stepped out of the Jeep. A fistful of rain slapped at my face and more trickled down the back of my neck as I crossed the parking lot to the shop’s door.
Not even a little bit funny, Thor.
Lightning cracked like a wink. Thunder ho-ho’d on the horizon.
Jackass.
The parking lot was full of cars and the shop windows glowed a soft yellow. The neon CLOSED sign burned blue, keeping away waterlogged tourists who were probably disappointed they’d packed bug spray instead of waterproofing.
“How about you lay off the water works for the rest of summer?” I muttered to the sky, knowing Thor wouldn’t listen to me. “We got nothing but wet to look forward to until next June. Can’t you give us a break before you drown us?”
My phone rang. I curled my hand around it but didn’t pull it out of my coat pocket yet. Odin stood in the doorway, bracing the door open with one big arm. He wasn’t looking at me. He was scowling at the interior of the shop.
“Thanks.” I checked the number on my phone. Ryder.
My heart stuttered into tiny beats and the world did that fade-away thing. All the Ryder thoughts I’d pushed off spilled out of my brain closet and started a party, front and center.