Chapter 15
Unfortunately for Aggie, I knew how to tell a person no and stick to it.
She got huffy about me not helping her find the cursed bear. I pointed out that she didn’t own the bears and I didn’t own them either.
Taking a bear out of the box would be stealing.
But if she was right and one of those bears was cursed, then I needed to find it and give it to Bertie to deal with.
So, I called Dusi. She had been cursed for most of her life. She should be able to tell me if a bear was cursed, or if Aggie was just making things up.
The community center was busy as could be. Two dozen people filled the space, working hard to get everything sorted.
“Piper.” Dusi crossed the room toward me. She wore her mirrored sunglasses, a bright turquoise scarf over her snakes, a sweater, and long skirt. She nodded toward the clipboard in my hand. “Is that the list?”
“Yep. Every box that has a bear. I think most of them are stacked over there.”
We both stared at the section of the stage crowded with boxes.
“I don’t suppose they are grouped together?” she asked.
“Mostly. We sorted by age, so the bears will be in the younger kid section. And since we did it yesterday, they should be the ones with the blue labels.”
She pushed up the sleeves of her sweater. “Let’s get digging.”
We were both strong, her from her art and sculpting, me from working a physical job for hours, so it didn’t take us long to move the boxes out of the way and uncover the row of blue labels.
Those we set to one side. They had numbers that indicated which box was packed with what, and once we found the first box in that system, it was pretty easy to find the other twenty or so we needed.
“Here we go.” I sliced the tape with a box knife and pulled the first bear out. “What do you think? Did we get lucky on the first try?”
She frowned and gave the bear a little squeeze. “Not cursed.”
“Okay. Here’s the tape. I’ll open the next one.”
She sealed up the box while I got to work digging out the next bear.
“This one’s okay too,” she said.
“Two down an only a few dozens more to go!”
She reapplied tape to the box. “Do you think Aggie is telling you the truth about dealing in cursed objects?”
“Yes. Totally. She had this look on her face like she knew she could make money. If one of these bears is cursed, I’d feel awful giving it to someone. But if they aren’t cursed, and she was lying so she could make a buck off of old teddy bears? Well, then all we’ve wasted is a little time.”
“Does she need money?”
“Working in a diner isn’t exactly high living. But I like it.”
“Do you think Aggie likes it?”
“Not like the rest of us. I think she would have stayed in the antiques business if she’d had a choice. How about this one? Cursed like Pandora’s box?”
She squeezed another bear, shook her head, and retaped the box. “I don’t know how cursed Pandora’s box might be. Once open, its curse was released.”
“So maybe it’s just a pretty box now?”
“Who said it was pretty?”
I shrugged. “Isn’t it?”
“Last I saw, it was a plain golden box with a hinge on the back. About this big.” She cupped her hands making a space about the size of a small orange.
“Smaller than I thought it would be.”
“Well,” she held up a bear and studied it. “Curses come in all sizes. Small doesn’t mean it’s not powerful.”
I laughed. “True. Is that our evil teddy?”
“Nope. This one’s fine too.”
I gave her a new bear.
“I do find it strange that the murders, the stolen box, the cursed teddy bear all happened after Aggie started working with you,” Dusi said. “What are the chances two demigod waitresses end up at the Blue Owl?”
I stopped, absolutely frozen. “What?”
“She’s a demigod.” Dusi tipped her head and frowned. “Wait. Did you not know that? When we were talking about Vandre being a demigod, I thought you knew Aggie was too.”
“No,” I said, feeling a little faint. “I didn’t know.”
But hadn’t I suspected something wasn’t adding up about her? That trying to see if she was magic made me feel like my wires were getting crossed?
She’d gotten the booth ready for Vandre before he’d walked in, handed me the napkin dispenser before I asked for it, and had caught that bowl of falling chowder when she couldn’t have possibly seen it get bumped. Vander had mentioned she knew about magic.
Maybe he had assumed I knew she was a demigod like him.
Like me.
“I thought you knew. Piper, I’m sorry.”
“It’s making me rethink everything about her,” I said.
“Like what?”
“Like if she is the kind of person who would kill Hugo for a cursed bear. She’s unhappy here, but I don’t know if she’s unhappy enough to kill someone.”
Still, the conversations where she called Hugo a thief and her saying she could outsmart any man who wanted to deal in antiques rolled through my mind.
“We haven’t ruled out the other demigod,” Dusi said. “Do you think Vandre could kill someone?”
I thought about his charm, his rumpled, easy-going demeanor. I thought about how he had gripped the table and forced a future to play out the way he wanted it to play out.
He had seemed powerful then. Unrelenting. Determined.
Would that same determination work for a killer? The cold determination that forced an entire future to bend to his will?
“I think he could,” I said honestly. “Myra vouched for him though. Said he was a good guy.”
“Did she? Or did she tell you he was a demigod detective who hunted down gods and other supernaturals who were breaking laws?”
“That’s his job,” I said.
“And?”
“He has to be good to follow the law if his job is enforcing the law. Right?”
“Piper, he’s a demigod. Here. Listen a moment.” She reached over and gently took one of my hands.
“Gods and demigods don’t follow rules. Not really. I know you were raised mortal, and your mother taught you that you should abide by the law. Told you your abilities were something to be careful with so that you didn’t hurt anyone.
“But many other people with your kind of powers don’t believe that. They have power and they use it to keep themselves in power. To stay in power, they will harm others.
“Detective Vandre might be a detective, but he is a creature of power first. So is Aggie for that matter.
“They can break any law they want. Ignore any rule. They can kill someone—especially if they are merely a mortal—because they want something they have.”
“He wants Pandora’s box,” I said. “But if he has it, why does he keep showing up at the diner saying he’s looking for it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with Aggie.”
“Aggie wants the bear.”
“Maybe it has something to do with you.”
“Me?”
“You’re a demigod, too, Piper. There might be something Vandre or Aggie want you to do for them. Or something they want to do to you.”
I breathed out and chuckled, shaking off my nerves. “That sounds dangerous.”
“It might be.”
“It might be,” I agreed. “Right. Guess I’ll have to deal with Detective Dangerous and Angry Aggie later.”
“Not alone.”
“Of course not alone. Don’t worry. If I’m going to get into trouble, I’m going to drag you and Jules into it with me.”
She smiled, and I liked seeing it, because it made her look so much softer and happier, and because she didn’t do it very often.
I opened another box. “Now let’s find that cursed bear.”