“No,” Lu said, “and yes.” She returned the watch and key back under her shirt.
Ricky made her way back to the table and sat. She pulled her cup close, cradling it between her hands. “You don’t have the book. Do you know who does?”
“Maybe a hunter,” I said. “Or it could be in someone else’s hands by now.”
Ricky sipped her tea. “The silver crow feather key is said to only open one book. It’s possible someone made a copy of the key, cast a fake for fun or profit, but there is a lot of god power radiating off that thing. I don’t think it’s a copy.”
“God power?” Lu said.
“Which god?” I asked.
“Yes, god power,” Ricky said. “I don’t know which one. Everything I am tells me not to touch that key unless I absolutely have to.”
“Why is the key made with god power?” I asked.
She studied me like she’d just watched me tumble off the turnip truck. “Because, Brogan,” she said. “The book is made by the gods.”
I didn’t appreciate her patronizing tone, but chills lifted the hair on my arms. “What kind of book?”
“That,” Ricky said, “is a good question. There aren’t records. It’s barely mentioned in even the oldest texts. One legend says the gods themselves wrote it using their powers. Each page carries a spell never before born into the universe.”
“Well, shit,” I said.
Lu stepped over and placed her hand on my shoulder. I leaned into her touch.
“Cupid’s interested in it,” Lu said. “Says he’ll help us find it.”
“He hasn’t asked for the key, though?” Ricky asked.
“No,” Lu said. “He knows I have it.”
Ricky inhaled and exhaled. “It is never a good thing to catch the attention of the gods. How did you meet Cupid?”
“Bo,” I said. “He wants us to call him Bo.”
“He found us last month,” Lu said. “In Illinois. He wants us to do some things for him, and find some things in exchange for us being alive together.”
“Oh, Lu-lala,” Ricky said. “Is that how you got Brogan back?”
“It wasn’t just me making the deal,” she said. “Bo came to us and offered. We both negotiated with him.”
“What does he want you to find?”
“Right now?” I said, “a rabbit. He won’t give us details, but we think it might be a moon spirit, a girl named Abbi.”
“Moon spirit?”
“The rabbit in the moon,” I said.
“Okay,” Ricky said. “I can work with that.”
Lu’s fingers slipped off my shoulder, and she turned to finish putting the large cherry pie and mini pies in the oven.
“Plenty of old tales about the rabbit in the moon,” Ricky said. “China, Japan, Korea. Cree. Most of them fall along the line of the rabbit sacrificing itself as food for another traveler—usually a god or someone powerful in disguise—and being rewarded for its sacrifice by being allowed to live on the moon. Some tales talk about the rabbit ending a plague, about it using pestle and mortar to grind up magic elixirs, or pounding rice cakes. There’s one story that the rabbit rides a crane to the moon.”
“Anything about a rabbit being a little girl living with a bunch of werewolves?” Lu asked.
Ricky snicked air through her teeth and leaned back, placing her fingertips on the edge of the table. She also kicked off her shoes so her feet were square and flat on the floor.
