“Exactly.” I grinned at him. Then I looked at Star. “Keep an eye on the Internet, Star. I want to know what they're saying about us.”
“I can do more than that,” she said with a smirk. The screens around us came alive with spanning text, blueprints, and weapon specs. “I can show you what they're thinking. What they're planning.”
I sat up straight and focused on the screens. “Star, did you just hack into government servers?”
“Hack,” she scoffed. “I am not a hack. I am magic, and I can go anywhere. You want to know what America is planning? I can show you. You want to see how many troops Russia has? I have that too. Want to launch a missile? No problem. We could make the humans go to war with each other and just sit back until the dust settles.”
“The whole point is to stop war,” I growled. “I do not want to manipulate humans into war; that is exactly what I'm fighting against, Star. I want to protect the humans and fight the Gods. That's what I do.”
“So... no to the missile launches?” Star blinked innocently.
“Can you stop the missiles from ever launching?” I countered. “Can you put every nuclear weapon out of commission?”
“I believe that's doable.” She twitched her nose like a 60's sitcom genie. “Done. No more nuclear weapons.”
“They're gone?” Sin asked in surprise. “You just vanished them?”
“That's right,” Star said. “Any other requests? Shall I turn all of their ammunition into sardines or fill their tanks with flowers?”
I chuckled and glanced at the gaping Sin. “How about some lunch? What are you feeling in the mood for, General?”
“Anything but sardines,” Sin declared then started laughing as boisterously as he had the first time he'd witnessed my power.
The Star Gods looked at each other and started to chuckle as well. I smiled at them but when I shifted my stare to Star, her smirk seemed to go sinister and a shiver coasted down my spine.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Did I break it?” I muttered as I tapped the Tablet of Destinies with a fingertip. “Hello? Is this thing on?”
I slapped my palm against the intricately carved stone slab just as I'd seen Marduk do. Nothing happened.
“Abracadabra!” I shouted and slapped it again. “Alacazam!” Another slap. “Wingardium Leviosa!” Another slap. “And now, I'm playing the bongos,” I grumbled to myself. “Wait... is it wing-gardium or win-gardium? Maybe wind-guardian? Windy-gaurdian leviosar!”
“It's leviosa, not leviosar,” Sin snickered as he came into the war room.
“Okay, but is it wing or win or wind?”
“I don't fucking know.” He laughed harder. “Wing it.”
“Haha.” I grimaced down at the tablet. “You don't happen to know how to activate this thing, do you?”
“Do you need to activate it?” Sin lifted a brow at me. “Can't you do what it does on your own?”
“Change destinies?” I asked and thought about it. “In a way, yes. But I can't directly target an individual and change his or her future.”
“Why would you want to?” Star asked as she appeared.
“Damn it!” Sin flinched. “Don't do that! You'll give me a fucking heart attack. Goddamn sentient magic, popping up all over the place whenever she wants.”
“You're a god,” Star pointed out dryly. “And besides, if you do have a heart attack, Vervain can make it go away with a thought.”
“If you can dream it, you can do it?” Sin smirked at me.
“Yes,” Star answered for me. “In seconds.”
“Nice.” Sin nodded. “Then you don't need the tablet.”
“Maybe not, but I'd like to know why it won't work for me,” I grumbled.
“Because it didn't work on you,” Star explained. “You must have a connection to destiny if you want to wield it.”
“Humph.” I looked over the clay tablet. “Well, if I can't use it, no one can.”
I lifted it above my head and cast it on the floor as Sin cried out and rushed forward to catch it. He was too late; the tablet hit. But all it did was bounce off the stone floor and come to a clattering stop like a fallen plate.
Star rolled her eyes. “I told you before that it's protected by wards. If it was that easy to destroy, don't you think I would have done so by now?”
“Thank goodness,” Sin sighed and reached for the tablet.
“Uh-uh-uh.” I stuck my boot on it. “Don't touch. Didn't you just hear me say that if I can't use it, no one will?”
“I was just going to pick it up,” Sin muttered. “What are you going to do with it; stick it in a glass case?”
“No. I'm going to stick it in a vault.” I picked it up and glared at the thing. “Never to be seen again,” I intoned dramatically.
The Tablet of Destinies was supposed to be a symbol of my triumph; proof that I would control the world. Instead, it just sat there dormant and irked me. It was an irksome tablet. I strode out of the room with it tucked beneath my arm.
“You should display it, Vervain.” Sin came after me. “It will help to keep the Mesopotamian Gods in check.”
“The Mesopotamian Gods are nearly extinct, Sin.” I glanced over to see his grimace. “Enki saved maybe a hundred of them. I'm not worried about your pantheon.”
“Yeah, okay,” he conceded. “Still, other gods know about the tablet. If they see you with it, it will—”
“I don't need the tablet to intimidate my enemies,” I cut him off. “I can do that all on my own, but that's not my goal. I want the Gods to see the good I'm doing and join me of their own volition.”
“I hate to break it to you, but they're not going to do that.”
“Excuse me?” I stopped in front of the elevator and turned to face him.
“All they can see right now is a powerful goddess barreling through the Middle East,” he said. “You're a threat. The Gods aren't paying attention to what you're doing for the humans. Frankly, even the good
