“Right,” Myra said. “No one has access to it except me. You can enter if I enter with you. But if you picked up your god power, you could draw the weapon to you in a snap.”
“Clever. Under lock and key no one can access except a Reed.”
“It’s the best solution, I think,” Myra said. “Store it with me, or leave town with your power to put it somewhere safe.”
“And hunt the thief down,” he said.
“That’s within your godly rights of course.”
He looked at the caught lightning, then back at the stack of books by his chair.
He slowly closed the lid of the box, pressing until the light was snuffed out, and nothing but a box remained. “I’ll accompany you to the library.”
Chapter Seven
“So the way I see it,”Crow said, as he forked coleslaw into his mouth. “You’re the weak link in the chain.”
“Excuse me?” We were outside, eating at a picnic table that could seat six in front of Chris Lagon’s Jump Off Jack brewery. A steady stream of people were getting curbside pickup, and a few were making themselves comfortable with indoor dining.
The weather was so nice, the patio area in the back that overlooked the bay, and the picnic tables right here out front by the parking lot were catching the most dining interest.
Myra had left for the library with Zeus to store the weapon, and Jean told me she’d relieve Ryder at the station, since he had to go check a job site for a build he had coming up in a couple months.
We were going to meet up later this evening to show Zeus the car, see if he knew anything about it or could get any impressions off it. Jean had also extended the invitation to Odin. Crow, of course, had invited himself along.
We didn’t know how the car fit in with the stolen weapons, or if the two cases were even related. I hoped the gods might have some sort of idea about that.
Crow had offered to buy lunch, so I was halfway through a bowl of chowder, homemade garlic knots, and having my character insulted.
“You’re the stress point in the whole,” he wiggled his fork, “god power vulnerability situation.”
We were keeping our voices down, but the nearest diner wasn’t in earshot anyway.
“Someone is projecting.” I bit a garlic knot, and immediately took another bite. That was one damn fine knot, the garlic set off with something peppery, and a hint of rosemary.
“Oh my gods,” I mumbled. “Have you tried these?”
“Not yet.” He reached for the pile on my plate. I smacked his hand.
“I don’t share my knots with mean people.”
He shook his hand and laughed. “Do you want to know why I think you’re to blame?”
“Not really, since I am not to blame.”
“You store the god powers.”
“I don’t store them. You know that. A god or goddess stores the powers. I just act as a bridge for the powers to go from god to storage.”
“That’s where the weakness is introduced. You are not a god, so when the god powers are in your hands, they’re in a limbo. During that limbo, someone must be gathering information. Enough to find a way to hack into the god realms.”
He moved on to his fries, pouring about a metric ton of malt vinegar over them, then shaking salt on top.
“Add more salt. If you die of a stroke, I’ll find somebody nice to be the next Raven god.”
He chortled and added a little more salt. “So cruel.” He shoved a fry in his face and made a big show of chewing and rolling his eyes in ecstasy.
“Gross. So this brilliant theory of yours is that someone what? Hacked my brain? Installed malware in my bridging power? Now they’re accessing information when I bridge power, is that it? The whole idea? That’s your explanation for weapons getting stolen?”
