~~~
HEIMDALL’S GOD power wasn’t stored in the kiln with the other god powers, since it hadn’t been willingly surrendered. But the heavy concentration of god powers in one place would act as a good grounding rod.
And so we were going to do the transfer at Crow’s shop.
Jean’s truck was in the parking lot, and so was Mykal Rossi’s SUV. Mykal was an EMT, and I thought that was a good bit of foresight on Jean’s part in case things didn’t go as smoothly as we hoped it would.
The neon CLOSEDsign glowed in the front window, but Raven opened the door and waved us in. “Long time no see! Come on back to the fire.”
Jean pushed past Cooper to give me a big hug. “Good job,” she whispered against my cheek as she clung to me.
I rubbed her back. “Save it for when I get this power settled, okay?”
I walked through the main room and back to the old kiln. Mykal stood off to one side, his hard case of medical supplies, a stretcher, and a defibrillator all resting next to his feet.
I gave him a nod and tried not to worry that he, and all his equipment, were here.
He smiled, showing his sharp canines.
Raven stood next to the furnace and Cooper waited in the middle of the room, arms crossed over his chest, looking lost.
I positioned myself in front of him, Myra and Jean standing behind me.
My heart raced so hard I had to do some deep breathing to stay calm.
“Okay. I need to ask you for your agreement officially. Are you ready?”
Cooper unwound his arms and shook his hands out, like getting ready for a wrestling match.
I waited until he nodded.
“Cooper Clark. Will you accept this power, ancient, magnificent, and pure?” It was a short question. I’d memorized it when I was just a kid. But standing here as the bridge for the power in front of the man who would become the vessel for the power gave the words an authority and weight that I’d never imagined.
“Yes,” he said. “I accept the power.”
I knew there was something else I was supposed to say, but at his agreement, the power leaped.
Leaped out of me, slipped from my hold, and hit Cooper like a lightning bolt out of the sky.
Voices filled the shop, thrumming, shouting, joy and passion. The song, the power, demanded entrance, demanded release. Distantly, I heard my own voice. Small, faint. A whisper among so many others.
I was the connection, the road, the string over which the song of power was plucked. The single point in this world where power and vessel could meet. Join.
I was, for one infinite moment, harmony.
Then silence swallowed me, so dark and soft and deep, I wondered if I’d been wrapped in thick velvet.
“Holy shit,” Cooper said in a trembling whisper. “Holy shit.”
I blinked and the world returned.
Cooper was gripping me by my upper arms, gazing down at me, his eyes filled with a light, a power, an otherness I’d never seen in him. It was alien and strange to see him as not quite the man I knew. But then his lips curved in a very Cooper smile. “Well, that is a hell of a thing.”
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He nodded and stepped back until his arms were at full length. He gently released his hold on me.
“I’m good,” he said. “Really, really good. Delaney, it’s…” He shook his head, all out of words.
