Chapter 3

I was runningthe make and model through the databases, and Myra was at her computer looking for any supernatural connection to the car that had fallen out of the sky earlier today.

It was just the two of us in the station, and the quiet was a nice change. Good weather, especially early in summer, drew people outdoors and away from calling the station complaining about things like missing welcome mats and X-rated chalk art.

My phone rang. I picked it up without looking at the screen.

"Chief Reed."

"Delaney, how delightful you finally answered your phone," the only Valkyrie in town said.

My eyes went wide, and I wondered if I could get away with "fumbling" the phone and "accidentally" hanging up on her.

"Hey, Bertie." I pitched my words toward Myra who ignored me. "Sorry about missing your calls. It's just been so busy."

I pulled a yellow pad out of my desk drawer and wrote HELP ME in big block letters on it.

"Has it?" she pressed.

Any answer I gave her was a trap.

I covered the phone with my palm. "What's that, Myra?" I threw my pencil at Myra. It hit her shoulder, and she finally looked away from her screen.

I waved the pad at her and mouthed please.

Myra just shook her head at me like I was being childish and went back to her work.

The big meanie.

"No, Myra," I said. "You're not getting that time off you wanted because we are so busy here."

Myra flipped me the bird without looking up.

"Sorry about the interruption," I said to Bertie. "Where were we?"

"I do not have an assistant."

"Oh-kay?"

"This season I will be three times as busy as usual. But I do not have an assistant. I have a standard to uphold. I alone deal with every detail of every event. Did you know that, Delaney?"

"Yes?"

"Did you know my time is not limitless? There are only so many ‘missed calls' I will tolerate."

Crap. She was angry. I opened my mouth to give her a real apology, but she cut me off.

"I need you to do something for me."

Oh, gods. This was what I'd been avoiding. Bertie was in charge of all the community events, festivals, and fundraisers. She'd been doing it almost longer than Ordinary had had its name. She always needed volunteers.

"I have been busy. I'm not sure how much help I can be, other than what we usually sign up for."

I always helped with the events. The whole department worked to keep an eye on crowds, help lost kids find their parents, make sure no out-of-towner was stomping through someone's flower beds. We handled fender benders, traffic management, de-escalated arguments before fights could break out.

Saturday's festival was coming up fast. Flyers plastered every window and bulletin board in Ordinary. Colorful flags and banners had been pulled from storage and installed in front of shops. Flowers were planted, watered and trimmed. The big event was pulling together without a hitch as far as I could tell.

"As you well know," Bertie went on, as if we'd just started the conversation, "we have a very important festival this weekend. It begins Saturday."

"Yes."

"Saturday is day after tomorrow."

"I'm aware."

"Are you also aware the Ordinary Show Off is an event residents mark on their calendar months in advance?"

To avoid, I mentally noted. "Yep. Yes. Talent show. It's on my calendar too."

To avoid.

"It is much more than a talent show, Delaney Reed. It is a chance for everyone to come together and reacquaint themselves. It is vital. Lifeblood. If anything were to stop it, Ordinary would be a shell of itself, gasping for air."

"I don't think Ordinary needs CPR, Bertie."

"Of course it doesn't. We have the talent show for that."

"Is this about Boring?"

Bertie had always been a bit militant about Ordinary's events. But ever since she'd found out her sister Valkyrie, Robyn, had nested in Boring and was going directly head-to-head with Bertie for the tourist dollars by throwing identical festivals at identical times, Bertie had been a little extra-extra.

"This is about a favor I need from you," she snapped.

Okay. Boring was a touchy subject. "I can't."

"You haven't heard what I want."

"But I know it's a talent show. I can't. I won't."

"Being crowned this year's Ordinary Show Off is a great honor."

"Didn't Phil Lambert win the last two years?"

"He was a crowd favorite. Of course he won."

"He played the "Ride of the Valkyries" with armpit farts."

I could hear her inhale through her nose, as if she were trying very hard not to shout at me.

"The year before that it was armpit-fart "The Blue Danube" wasn't it?"

"No," she said through her teeth. "It was Vivaldi."

What could I say? Ordinary liked weird stuff. Like big sweaty bald guys armpit farting the classics.

"Three wins in a row would be very unlikely," Bertie said. "Unless you are suggesting our current Ordinary Show Off hasn't earned his crown?"

"No. No. Phil's great. I just can't."

"Can't what? I haven't asked for my favor yet."

Bertie was right. The events she put on were important. They kept us together, created our traditions. They let the outgoing among us thrive and tempted the hermits to join in.

It was good. The talent show was cheesy as all heck, but it was good.

However, the idea of me standing on that stage doing anything in front of all those people had me sweating hard.

"Delaney?"

"I can't be an Ordinary Show Off."

Bertie's sigh was long-suffering. "I wouldn't ask you to. You don't have any talent. Not a single dramatic bone in your body."

"Hey, I can do stuff."

Myra snorted and clicked away at her keyboard. I threw another pencil at her. She didn't even move.

"You want to perform in front of the entire town?" Bertie asked, scenting blood on the battlefield.

"No."

"Then what makes you think I would force you to do something you abhor?"

"What about the rhubarb, Bertie? Do you remember the rhubarb? Because I still have nightmares about the rhubarb."

"I stand corrected," she said dryly. "You do have a dramatic bone in your body."

"Myra can ride a unicycle," I said sweetly.

Myra stopped typing. Her head swiveled slowly toward me, her eyes hard.

"I know what Myra can do. I want you to tell Ryder he should participate."

"Ryder?"

"Yes."

"Ryder Bailey?"

"Yes."

"You want Ryder to get up on stage and be a Show Off?"

"Is there something wrong with your hearing?"

"No, it's just….What do you think Ryder's going to do?"

"I've seen his art. I believe he took piano lessons when he was young."

"Oh, gods." I had forgotten that. "You want him to play piano?"

"I want him to be the last person on stage before the judging. What he decides to do doesn't matter to me. I'm sure he'll come up with something wonderful. Encourage him to accept my invitation."

It should have sounded like she wanted me to just give him a friendly nudge.

But I knew this was a threat.

"I don't know, Bertie. He's been really busy too."

"Planning the wedding, yes, I know. The community center is open third Thursday next month, two Fridays the month after, possibly half a Sunday. All the other dates after that are booking up fast."

"Uh..."

"You have chosen a date, haven't you? And a venue?"

"Um..."

"I can't keep the calendar open indefinitely, Delaney. If Ordinary is to remain the queen's jewel of small-town festival destinations in Oregon, then every date has to be leveraged for optimal impact."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"See that you do. Now, I have an appointment I can't miss."

"Wait, before you go. Did you hear about the car falling out of the sky?"

"I saw it when I was coming back from my second walk of the morning."

"Overachiever."

"Thank you."

"Do you know anything about the car? Did you see anything odd?"

"Other than the sky broke open, caught on fire, and time stopped?"

So sassy.

"Other than that, yes."

"No."

"A crab crawled out of it."

The silence was very judgey. I didn't know how she managed to do that over the phone.

"Is that all, Delaney?" The words were an ice floe.

"Yep. Yes. That's it. That's all. You have a good day, Ber—"

The call disconnected.

I thumbed off the screen then threw three more pencils at Myra. "Thanks for nothing."

"If you can't handle the Valkyrie, stay off of the battlefield," she said mildly.

I dropped my head on my desk, thunking my forehead.

"Why. Me?" I whined to the scratched wood.

"You don't have to be here," Myra said for the seventh time since I'd come into work. "I told you to stay home. It's your day off."

I fake screamed with my mouth open, but no sound came out. It didn't make me feel any better, so I rolled my head, pressing my cheek against the desk.

The wood was cool, and everything looked sort of fun-housey from this angle.

"I have work to do." I stretched and pushed the stapler to the edge of the desk, straightening the base with my finger until it lined up perfectly.

"Uh-huh." Myra was back to typing again, the clickity clack loud in the quiet station.

"Any luck on the car?" I asked.

"Nope." She kept right on typing.

"Are you on one of those secret auction sites that sells old magic stuff?"

"No. I don't look for magic items at work. Also, nothing good has shown up on those sites in months."

"Think we could get some money for a car that fell out of the sky once?"

"Nope."

I lifted my head a little to try and see more of her screen.

"Bertie wants Ryder to be in the talent show."

"I heard."

"She remembered he used to play piano."

Myra tipped her chin up just a bit and took a deep breath. "Okay, we're doing this now?"

"Doing what now?"

"Moping about the wedding."

"I don't mope."

She tapped her mouse a few times, then pulled on the bottom drawer of her desk and lifted a paperback out of it. "Fine. Since you're going to be like this, I'm taking a break."

She opened the book and leaned back in her chair.

"I thought you liked reading on your E-reader."

She didn't lift her eyes, but she pointed at the device on her desk with the cord plugged in and charging. "This is my back up." She jiggled the book. "Which I need today because the reader is charging. You know what back up I don't need today?"

Now her gaze flicked up, and the blue, lighter than mine, held me pinned. "Any idea what back up I don't need today, Delaney? Any idea at all who I might not need around here," she spun her finger in the air, "interrupting me all day when they aren't even supposed to be working today?"

"I don't want to leave you short-handed if there's another emergency."

"If there were another emergency, you know I'd call you. We've been working together for years. You know this. So why are you really here?"

I shrugged.

She shook her head and went back to reading.

I tried to stay quiet, really I did, but it felt like I had electricity popping under my skin. I was on edge, wishing there was something I could do to settle my nerves, but I didn't even know why I was so jumpy.

Okay, that was a lie. I was jumpy because a fricking car had just fallen out of the sky.

My wedding was coming up, maybe, probably, if we picked a date. But—and for reasons I couldn't fathom—I was dragging my feet. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

"Mmm-hmm." Myra licked a finger and turned the page. Loudly. Like maybe she was hoping I would get the hint.

I would not get the hint.

"I know I should be happy. I love Ryder. I want to be with him. Spend my life with him, but everything feels wrong."

She closed her eyes and tipped her head down for a minute before gamely lifting her head again and going back to reading.

"I don't know why I feel like this."

The muscle at her jaw tightened.

"What should I do?"

"Go home." She glared at me, waited a second, then went back to her book. "I will call if I need you." She lifted her mug of tea that smelled of lavender and orange and took a sip.

"I just…wish I could figure out the mess in my head. I keep thinking in circles. Some of it is the car falling out of the sky. Some is that we now have three demons living in Ordinary.

"I know they're hiding from the King of demons. But they signed our contract. Just because they had a hard past, doesn't mean I can turn them away when they're seeking asylum."

She sighed. "Delaney."

"Do you remember Bathin's brother showing up when Ryder proposed to me?"

She licked her finger one more time, turned the page, then placed a red silk ribbon down the center of the book, leaving part of it hanging over the spine.

"Okay, now we're doing this?"

"Doing what?"

She turned her chair and faced me. "You are avoiding working on the falling car situation, while avoiding planning your upcoming wedding situation by thinking about our demon situation. And the question you're asking me is if I remember Bathin's brother appearing out of thin air during your engagement and stabbing Bathin with a sword while I was standing there beside him?"

I winced. "I know you remember it."

"I thought he was going to die. Yes. I remember it."

I didn't know how she could sound so calm about it, but that was part of how Myra handled things. She compartmentalized and intellectualized.

Unlike me. My emotions got in the way. Oh, not at work. I was all logic when it came to enforcing the laws of Ordinary. But when it came to personal hard stuff, my emotions were all over the place. I'd get them sorted out, but I had to work through them. I had to process.

"Why are you even worrying about the demons?" she asked.

"You know, maybe we should just get back to work."

"We should, actually, but I'm not letting you out of this now. What does Bathin getting fake stabbed by his asshole of a brother have to do with anything?"

Okay, maybe she had a few emotions to work through too.

"He chose that moment—my engagement—to tell us a war is coming."

"I remember. But we've been hearing that one way or another from a lot of people over the years."

"We've had bad things happen."

"Sure. We have. We've gotten through them."

"And I keep thinking, his warning is just like the other warnings, the other things that have happened, and they all turned out fine."

"Not without injuries," Myra said. "Not without deaths."

"I was only dead for like a minute."

"That is never going to be something I can joke about, Delaney."

I nodded. "Fair. What if this war with the king of demons, old what's his name..."

"Brute of All Evil," Myra said.

"What?"

"It's one of his names."

"That's a terrible name."

Myra shrugged. "Demons. They come up with the weirdest titles and names."

"I'm going to ask you how you know that someday. But what I'm getting at, is we've been told the Brute of All Evil," I rolled my eyes, "is power hungry and wants to destroy Ordinary because he wants to destroy all the world, and Ordinary might stand in his way."

"We do like the world," Myra noted.

"Maybe he's not after Ordinary. Maybe he wants something else."

"The king could be targeting Ordinary because Bathin is here," Myra said. "He's next in line for the throne. Or because the queen of the demons and her recently escaped consort are here too. If they left, we wouldn't have this problem."

"He's not leaving," I said.

"I know."

"Myra, I won't let Bathin leave."

She studied me for a minute. "You couldn't stop him. No, don't get all puffed up about it. He's a demon. He can transport himself to any place in the universe in a second. He can control the inner spaces of any stone in the worlds. If he wanted, he could transport into a pebble on the top of Mount Everest, and that would be that."

"He loves you," I said one-hundred percent sure of that and wanting her to know it. Bathin had possessed my soul for over a year. In some ways, it had been a two-way connection. I knew him—the real him—maybe better than anyone. "He won't leave you."

"If it meant saving me from a war?" she asked. "If it meant drawing war away from Ordinary?"

"He doesn't get to break your heart just so he can be a heroic martyr."

She blinked and for a moment she looked younger, vulnerable and afraid. Myra hadn't had a lot of relationships in her life because she guarded her heart very carefully.

But when she gave her heart to someone, she gave it all. It was just the way she was made. That was why she had been very, very careful about falling in love.

It would be absolute hell on her if he left. Even if he thought he would be saving her, he would be doing the opposite.

That was not going to happen. Not on my watch.

"You were talking about your engagement. What does that have to do with demons and kings of hell and war?"

"A demon showed up when Ryder proposed to me. Do you think that's a coincidence?"

"I don't think anything is a coincidence."

I spread a hand in a there-you-go gesture.

"So...let me see if I'm following your logic here. You think if you get married, what? You're going to start a demon war?"

"No. I don't think my marriage means anything to the demon world. But the whole wedding thing is making me…"

"Neurotic?"

"Hey."

"Whiney?"

"What the—"

"Stupid?"

"Go back to the first thing."

She took a moment to really look me over. I didn't know what she saw in my blue jeans, belt, and black tank under Ryder's hoodie. I didn't know what she saw in my slouch, or my hair pulled back in a low ponytail.

But she saw something. And it made her narrow her eyes.

I folded my hands in my lap and picked at a thumbnail.

"No," she said.

"No what?"

"You cannot hide out here at work worrying about a war that might not even be a thing just because you"re avoiding wedding planning."

I scoffed. "I'm not hiding out." But the words sort of dried up under her slow blink.

"Delaney Reed, I cannot believe you just lied to me. About work and about your wedding to the man you've loved since you were eleven."

I picked at my other thumb and muttered something under my breath.

"What was that? What did you just say to me?" she demanded.

"Six and a half. I've had a crush on him since I was six and a half. And that's not what this is."

She waited. No rustle of the page being turned, no squeak of her chair springs. The phone had been silent for two days, ever since the weather went mild, so no help there.

"Want to try that again?" she asked.

"Maybe I'm hiding out a little. Not from Ryder."

I wanted to get married. I'd loved Ryder since I was so young I didn't even know how big, how wonderful, love could be.

Even then, when I'd been a tiny human with a whole world of experience still ahead of me, I'd known he was it. Ryder was the curiosity I needed to understand. Ryder was the one person I needed to see with my eyes. His voice, his laughter, the sound I needed in my ears. And the smell of him—which had changed over the years and yet somehow remained familiar, becoming more than a deeply ingrained knowledge of Ryder and becoming more, becoming home and joy and love—was what I wanted around me at all times.

But a wedding, oh, that was change. A big change. My life would never be the same after, and I had a pretty great life right now. Maybe the best it had ever been.

I met Myra's gaze. It wasn't judgement in her eyes, it was…well, not quite pity. Maybe understanding? It was one of those sister looks I only ever got when I was being a dumbass about something.

"He loves you," she said.

"I know that." I did. So much so that my heart started pounding faster just hearing her say it.

"He wants to marry you."

I nodded, slouching further into my chair.

"He wants your wedding to be special." She dipped her head to catch my gaze. "You know that's what he wants, right? For your wedding to be wonderful. Perfect?"

"Yes." But the word was quiet.

"Delaney."

"I know. I know he wants it perfect." I blew out a breath then squared my shoulders and straightened. I reached back and split my ponytail in two to tighten the rubber band.

"I know he loves me. I know I love him. I know how lucky I am to be right where I am. With him. Together."

"Now you're going to tell me what the problem is."

"I'm scared."

"You're scared. Of what? Ryder?" There was a little less sister and a little more cop in her tone.

"No. He's not…. You know he's wonderful. I just…things change."

"What things?"

I shrugged. "Things." Then after a moment, "People."

"Mom?" she asked. Her voice was almost a whisper.

We didn't talk about our mom much. We'd been pretty small when we lost her. But I remembered Dad before mom had left us. I remembered Dad after she'd left us. He'd never been the same after her death. Our house hadn't been the same. Our family.

"I think about her sometimes," I said just as quietly. We were both leaning in toward each other, like we could hold this memory, this pain between us. So we could keep it from spreading like a bruise we'd never stop feeling, the memory of her, the pain of her aching and swelling into the rest of our lives.

"I do too," Myra said. "Sometimes."

"Dad was…different when they were married. Do you remember that?"

"I remember him laughing a lot. Singing."

"They would dance…" I stopped, the memory of Ryder and I dancing in the kitchen catching like a knife in my chest. "They were really happy," I said. "Really in love."

Her eyes ticked back and forth, searching me for something, maybe for the memories that were stronger for me, since I was the eldest.

"It's change," I said. "I know life always changes but this is big. I like the life I have, Myra. I don't know if I'm ready for it to change."

Myra took a breath to argue, or hey, maybe to agree with me at the exact moment the front door banged open.

"What the hell is this about?" shouted the god Odin, who went by the name Odin while vacationing in town because he had an ego as big as Zeus'.

Nothing about Odin said graceful, refined, or artistic. He stood, storm-tossed, his gray hair sticking out in all directions, his good eye, the one without the patch, sharp and accusing. He had on a black T-shirt that really showed off the muscles he usually hid under baggy flannel while he was living the life of a slightly wild unskilled chainsaw artist.

He pointed a blunt finger our way. "Did you do this?"

We leaned back from each other, and Myra was on her feet, slow, but easy.

"Do what?" she asked.

We'd known Odin since we were kids running out in the forest around his cabin, trying to pick out which tree he should use for his next work. Grumpy uncle on the outside, kindest, fiercest heart on the inside.

"This." He pulled out the box he had tucked under his arm. It was just a regular plain cardboard box. Long. More like a document tube than a box.

"I didn't give you a box," Myra said. "Did you give him a box?"

I shook my head. "Someone sending you presents in the mail?" I teased.

He strode to the counter that separated our desks from the tiny lobby/waiting room, slammed the box down and flipped up the lid. "This," he said, "should not be here."

Both Myra and I were on our feet now. She got to the box before me, and I saw her whole body stiffen. I peered down at the contents.

"It's a spear," Myra said.

"I know it's a spear," Odin growled. "I didn't come here for you to tell me it's a spear."

"Why are you angry about someone mailing you a spear?" I asked. "Is this a threat of some kind? Do you think you're being threatened?" I could hear the excitement in my voice, but I couldn't help it. Things had been really quiet around here.

"Of course I'm being threatened, all the powers help whoever's behind this," he said. "That's my spear."

He crossed his huge arms over his wide chest and that condescending look belonged on a prosecutor who had just produced the bloody fingerprints, damning documents, and gotten a confession to nail shut the big murder case.

And yeah, I could feel the power just pouring off of it.

"When did you receive it?" Myra asked.

"This morning."

"In the regular mail?" I asked.

"It was left on my front step."

"Who did you leave it with?" I asked.

"I don't loan out my weapons, Delaney."

"This is a part of your godhood, a part of your power which means it can't just be picked up and passed around by everyone in the world. Who had access to it?"

"No one."

"Has it been in town?" Myra asked.

"No."

I was starting to catch on. "This was left…behind? In Valhalla or wherever you hang out when you're godding instead of vacationing?"

"Yes. None of us bring our weapons to Ordinary. We never have. Look at it again—really look at it."

The spear was too short to be a functioning weapon, although the longer I looked at it, the more I knew I wasn't seeing all of it. The head was black heart stone of an ancient universe, razor-sharp and silver-shot. The shaft was jade and umber, twisting with golden runes that burned and flared, pulsing in and out of existence as if a cosmic breeze slowly blew across the eternal fire kindled there.

I was sensitive to god power—it came with my family gift of being the Bridge, the one who allowed gods to put down their power and vacation here. My dad had been able to see god power when he'd held the job, but now that I was the Bridge, I heard it too.

And oh, the power in this weapon. It sang out in a clarion of exaltation, a soul-aching call of something beyond, something deep and hot and thirsty. This was brotherhood, sisterhood, shoulder to shoulder and step to step; heartbeat to heartbeat. This was a rush of raven wings, a howl of wolves, a roar of hope.

This was battle.

This was victory.

"Oh," I said, hearing my voice break. "Oh," I said a little clearer. "Yes. Um, yes, I can…I can see it."

"Are there any markings on the box?" Myra asked.

"Just this." He turned the whole thing over like it weighed nothing. I was pretty sure that box—that god weapon—would be too heavy for a mortal to move. Even a mostly-mortal like me.

On the back side of the box was a red, stamped circle with a horizontal line bisecting it, and a stamped red feather.

"Do you know what that means?" I asked.

Myra was frowning, the crease between her eyebrows gone deep. "The circle is the alchemical symbol for one of the three primes: salt, or the body. I don't know what the red feather means."

"It means someone has access to a weapon I have made a point of keeping hidden and locked away," Odin grumbled.

"And that's bad," I said.

Odin ran his big mitt over his beard and it sprang back even more wild. "Yes, Delaney." His words were quieter, the anger banked and something else filling them. Something like dread. "That's very, very bad."

"Are you going to take the weapon back to where you usually keep it?" Myra asked.

Odin shifted his weight, squaring off to her. "I'd rather not."

"Because you'd have to go be a god and stay out of Ordinary for at least a year," I said.

"Which I've done recently and do not intend to do again for some time."

"So what do we do with the spear?"

"Gungnir," he said.

"Gesundheit."

That earned me a scowl. "You know Gungnir is the name of my spear, Delaney."

"Right," I said trying to hide a smile. "So what do we do with Gungir? The safe here at the station won't hold it, and I don't like the idea of leaving it in the magic jail unguarded."

"The library," Myra said. "I have a vault in the basement, well, an entire room. It's equipped with every spell, lock, ward, and sacred circle in the books. No one can go in the library but me, so it won't be stolen. If anything happens while it's there, Harold would tell me."

I raised my eyebrows at Odin, waiting for his reply.

He thought it over for a minute. "The foundation?"

"Oldest part of the library," Myra agreed. "Set there by all the gods as one."

He nodded. "That will do."

"Good," I said, glad to at least have part of the situation under control. "Myra, I'll leave you to take Odin to the library. I'll stay here and deal with," I waved my hand at the quiet station, "everything else. Good thing I came into work today, isn't it?"

She didn't say anything but she didn't have to. The finger she flew behind her back as she followed Odin out the door worked just fine.