“Then why would a god want all those powers?”
“Ransom? Revenge? So no one else could have them?”
“Maybe,” he said around a mouthful of egg and cheese. “But most of us are here to get away from those things. Especially when it has something to do with our powers—our real jobs. Maybe we’ll want ransom and revenge years from now when we’re done vacationing, but most of us like the time off. From everything.”
“You seemed to be taking this awfully gracefully for someone who has screwed up in such an epic manner. You do realize this is an emergency, right?”
“Well.” He swallowed down a mouthful of orange juice. “Since only the god who belongs to the power can use the power—one vessel per power—I’m not even sure this rates as an emergency. I mean, only those of us who belong to the powers can use them. So what’s the worst that can happen?”
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 changedmylife. 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.
