“You’re thinking that if he breaks her heart you will tear him apart, and probably feel guilty and never forgive yourself for letting her risk herself over him.
“You’re thinking that you’re proud of her for risking her heart all the same, because she doesn’t take wild chances like that, not the way Jean does with gleeful abandon, not the way you do with heart-felt need and desire.”
“I’m thinking my uncle isn’t a very good mind reader,” I said, but without any heat, because he was right. On all of that.
“And you’re thinking about change. Your sisters. The new people on the force. The wedding. Your life is changing Delaney Reed. And these are some of the big changes that send you down new paths. Out there into the wild unknown. Could be nothing but happy and flowers at the end, you know. Could be danger at every turn.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He smiled, his cheeks curving up to make his eyes into crescents. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. I can see it in you, Boo-boo. You’re afraid of what’s coming. And it isn’t power or gods or demons that scare you. It’s big life changes. It’s letting go of something to grab hold of something new.”
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” I said. “You just happened to show up when the first weapon was delivered. You’ve inserted yourself into the investigation and are trying very hard to take my attention away from the fact that you and Zeus had a little silent discussion back on his balcony.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Are you going to finish those garlic knots?”
“So here’s an idea.” I spread my hand over the knots, blocking his grab. “I’m going to give you a chance to practice telling the truth.
“Why are you so interested in this, Crow? No bullshit. If it really is a threat, some kind of blackmail or break in security, I need to know everything you know about it.”
“Practice? I’m always truthful. A book with my pages spread wide.”
“Talk.”
He pressed his fingertips to his lips, then sat back and wiped his mouth with a napkin.
He was my almost-uncle, the man, well, god, I’d known all my life, but he was more too. He was something I hadn’t seen very often. He was serious.
“There’s something about this whole thing that bothers me.”
I held back on the snide commentary, because I didn’t want him to clam up. I didn’t want him to go back to throwing shit, just joking around. I needed him serious. I needed that clever trickster mind of his to shove things together and break them apart into smaller, stranger pieces.
I needed him on my side of this fight. Because I knew my town. Things didn’t happen for no reason, especially not god things.
“I can’t quite put my thumb on it, which is why I haven’t said anything.” He crossed his arms, like he was about to tell me something he didn’t think I would believe.
“I’m sitting right here,” I said. “Anything will help.”
“Demons. I’ve been around them through the, well, through a lot of years. I can respect their strengths. The ability to lure someone by promising their desire, feeding off high emotions, off what some people would say are sins. I can get behind that kind of thinking. Especially when they deliver. You want to be rich? You’ll put kings to shame. Beautiful? You’ll be on the cover of every magazine in the world. Wanna play that guitar? We got your back, Johnny.
“But they make you pay, don’t they? Offer you everything and make you pay twice as much as that. It’s a con. It’s a big trick. Sleight of hand. They’re showing you which cup the prize is under. And yet…and yet…people trade, people sign on the line, people get what they want, and in the end, they lose everything.
“You gotta admit that’s a hell of a trick to pull off. Trade your soul, sign in blood, you’ll be ecstatic, until you aren’t.”
“So you respect demons?” I asked.
“I respect how they play the game. How they hook the trick. As one craftsman to another.” He nodded.
“I know how to spot a demon and their work. From a mile off. From a world away. This weapon thing, it has something to do with demons. I don’t have proof. But I know it. Something about this is tangled up with demons.”
“Do you think Bathin and Xtelle are involved? Or Avnas?” I understood why he hadn’t said anything yet. Because he was right. I did worry about Myra falling in love with Bathin. I worried about Jean too, as she was the one currently keeping an eye on Bathin’s mother Xtelle who preferred the form of a pink unicorn, but had settled on being an annoying pony while inside Ordinary’s borders.
Xtelle had broken the contract with the King of the Underworld and was no longer the Queen of the Underworld. She could be trying to start a fight with her ex and wanting to use Ordinary as the battleground, or worse, as the prize.
“I don’t know,” Crow said, and it might have been the most honest thing I had ever heard out of him. “I don’t think…I don’t think a demon could pull this off on their own. But stealing those weapons is something big. Thewhyof this is just as interesting to me as is thewhoof it.
“Someone is moving the game pieces on the board, and I don’t like it. And not because I’m not the one pulling the strings. Well, not only because of that.”
“Do you think Zeus would have told you if he thought a demon had stolen the bolt?”
