Jerk.
“I know it won’t be that easy,” I said. “And I know you all are uncomfortable standing on the sidelines of a crime. But it is a crime. According to the contract of Ordinary, all crimes are handled by the police. Me. That doesn’t mean I don’t want your help. If any of you suspect where your powers might be, or who they might be with, call the station. We’ll be the point on this investigation, but input on the search is welcome.”
There was a general rumble of annoyance and agreement, and then Frigg opened the door.
“We trust you, Delaney,” she said. “You’ve always done right by us.” She walked out the door, then jogged through the rain.
The rest of the deities followed her example. Hades, Thanatos, Zeus, Ares, Athena, Brigid, Nortia, Momus, Poseidon, Bast, and many more, gave me a nod or a glare, then stepped out into the rain.
Only Odin and Crow remained behind.
Crow stood with his back against the cold furnace, his eyes closed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. His shoulders were slumped. He looked like a man who had just escaped being mauled by a room full of lions, tigers, and bears.
Close enough.
“Get your coat,” I said.
He tipped his head and opened his eyes, but his fingers remained between his eyebrows.
“What?”
“Lock up the shop. We’re going now.”
“But...what?”
Okay, maybe he was still coming to grips with his near-death experience.
“You’re riding with me today. Protective custody. I need to take Odin back to his place. Let’s go.”
“But my shop. My...my work. I can’t just shut everything down.”
“Yes, you can. As a matter of fact, you need to make some long-term plans about shutting it down or giving it to someone else to run. Because as soon as we find the powers, you will pick yours back up and leave Ordinary like you should have three months ago. You broke the rules. That’s not going to fly.”
Crow dropped his hand, his arms loose at his side, his head thunked back against the kiln. If defeat had an avatar, Crow could model for it.
“All right.” His voice had gone very soft. “I got it. Let me shut things down. Give me a minute.”
He pushed off the furnace and headed to the back of the shop to his small office and outside door.
“Do you believe him?”
I looked over at Odin who stood near the front windows. His back was toward me, his hands planted against his hips so that his elbows jutted out. He looked broad and strong as a granite outcropping standing there while the storm whipped against the glass.
“Crow?” I asked.
He grunted in agreement.
“Do I believe he doesn’t have the powers anymore? That’s pretty obvious.”
Odin shifted his weight and turned toward me, backlit now by the gray day. “Do you believe he doesn’t know where the powers are?”
My first response was to say yes, of course I believed he didn’t know. He was obviously freaked out over the loss and afraid of what the other deities would do to him because of his lapse. I didn’t think there had ever been a god who had failed to keep the powers safe and hidden while they were in Ordinary.
Crow had just put himself in the history books, and not in a good way.
But he had admitted the power tricked him. Maybe somehow, even in a subconscious way, he might know where the powers were. “If he knows, I’ll make him tell me.”
Odin shook his head slightly. “You heard me before, didn’t you, Delaney?” His voice had an even timbre I wasn’t used to from him. He sounded almost...fatherly. Odin had never been fatherly. Cranky, egotistical, and self-centered, yes. But not fatherly. Not to me.
“Heard what?”
“Crow is not your uncle. Not family. Really, none of us are. Your father understood that. There is a division between gifted mortals, like you and your bloodline, and gods who are temporarily mortal. Even though we don’t carry our powers, we don’t...see the world in the same way as a mortal. We can’t. We have been changed too much by the power we bear.”
I nodded. I didn’t think I’d ever heard this many words out of him in all my years of knowing him. It was surprising enough that I didn’t want to interrupt.
“We don’t see the world in the same manner as mortals. We don’t experience time as a mortal would.” He gestured with one meaty hand as if he were trying to drag words out of the air, then planted his palm back on his hip. “We do not love as a mortal loves. Not even if we try.”
Thunder rumbled slow and low outside and the rain picked up.
The entire conversation made me feel sad, though I couldn’t say why. Maybe it was because it was so unexpected. I would never have guessed Odin had this kind of insight to share. Never would have thought he’d given any time to consider what a mortal might think and feel as compared to a god.
But then, he was known as a wandering god, as a wise man. Maybe the accident-prone, grumpy chainsaw artist I knew was just an act he put on. A part he played to fit in this ordinary town in this ordinary world.
“So if Crow has found a way to make you think he loves you, that he cares for you as a mortal cares for another mortal, think twice, Delaney, before you believe him.”
Thunder rolled again, a soft rumble to the north, nearly out of town now.
“If I believe Crow doesn’t care for me, for my well-being, because no god is capable of that kind of caring, then how exactly am I to take your advice, Odin? It’s very kind of you to warn me like this.”
He shook his shaggy head, his grin a slice of white in the dark shadows over his face. “I’m not saying this out of kindness. I’m just telling an officer of the law to be wary of me and my kind, especially when we’re trying to be helpful.”
“Or when you’re worried about me?”
He scowled, but I wasn’t buying it. It had only been a couple months ago, right after Heimdall’s murder that Odin and several other gods had told me they had promised my dad they’d help me if I needed it.
There was plenty at stake for the gods to want to make sure I did my job and did it well.
But it wasn’t just for their own survival that the gods had offered to help me. My father had forged a friendship with the gods of our town that hinged on mutual respect. He hadn’t spoken much about how the Reeds before him had interacted with gods, other than to say they had always carried out their duties. But I’d gotten the impression that past Reeds hadn’t seen the use in socializing much with the gods.
Back in those days, generations ago, the town was really nothing more than a small collection of buildings along the dirt road that followed the coastline dotted with fishing boats and cabins built into the hills. There wasn’t much for a Reed to do but to occasionally hike out to a god’s place and make sure they weren’t using their powers while inside the town’s boundaries.
Dad had changed that. He had been not just the police chief, he had also been a man the gods could turn to with questions, troubles, and opinions.