It didn’t take long before a swarm of military vehicles stopped us, but the somewhat terrifying moment of having a herd of soldiers with automatic rifles pointed at our car quickly faded into a lot of shouting in Spanish and waving our convoy through. I shot Keira my “What the bloody hell?” look, and she explained, “They recognized Mama Pacha in the lead car. And I’m assuming she told them why we’re here.”
Inti, who was sitting in the passenger seat upfront, turned toward me and added, “The military has been trying to subdue Supay and Paricia, and not surprisingly, the results have been deadly for both soldiers and civilians. Paricia retaliated with a devastating flood on the coast that wiped out entire villages.”
“Oh, my God,” Keira whispered. I instinctively reached for her hand to comfort her, and by the time I realized what I was doing, I’d already woven my fingers through hers. Fully expecting her to yank her hand away from me, I prepared an apology in my mind, but she only looked at me, wide-eyed and sad and maybe even a little hopeful that I could somehow undo the damage these forgotten gods had caused.
“We need to start setting an example,” I decided. “No survivors. But we need to make a show of it, let the other gods considering a violent comeback know what fates await them if they murder innocent people.”
“You want to abduct these gods?” Yngvarr asked. “And do what with them?”
“Take them to Asgard. Hell, bind them in Loki’s cave. I don’t care as long as it sends a clear message they’re going to regret not staying in the shadows.”
“Do we have an official torturer?” Keira asked.
Yngvarr nodded and muttered, “Odin,” then seemed to remember he was talking about Keira’s father so he shot her an apologetic smile.
Inti pointed to the vehicles in front of us and announced, “They’re pulling over in the Plaza Mayor. I suspect Supay and Paricia have taken up residence in the Government Palace.”
“Well, yeah,” I agreed. “If I were going to stage a supernatural coup, I’d totally take up residence in a palace, too.”
As soon as our car stopped, I pushed my door open and scowled at the Government Palace, irrationally hoping Supay and Paricia would just save me the trouble of having to go in there by venturing outside and surrendering. Not surprisingly, that didn’t happen. But as car doors slammed closed all around me, I thought I saw dark shapes slithering down the walls of the palace, slick like oil but with sharp, jagged edges. “Um, am I the only one who sees the building bleeding?”
“No,” Inti replied. “And it’s not bleeding. Supay’s demons are coming to greet us.”
Chapter Fifteen
Okay, here’s the deal: I’m not going to say I ran down the street screaming, but I may not have stayed by the Government Palace either. I’d been expecting Supay’s demons to look kinda human at least, but what dropped from the sides of the building and formed into distinct shapes was most certainly not humanoid. Instead, I found myself staring at elongated bodies that stood upright, but their spindly legs seemed too thin to support their weight, and their heads were straight out of a cheesy 80’s horror movie. Long, bony snouts sniffed the air and thick horns—which appeared awfully sharp, I might add—curved upward from their grotesque heads.
Each long, thin arm ended in three fingers… scratch that, three talons. And honestly, who would stick around to find out how easily those demons could sink their claws into soft human flesh? Unfortunately, their equally long legs made them extraordinarily fast runners so I didn’t get very far.
Keira shouted my name, and by the time I spun around, the demon was already in the air, leaping toward me with its talons spread and its snout wide open, and I had the sudden, absurd thought, “I wonder if they eat people? I mean, vegetarian demons seem pretty unlikely.” And in that precious, split second before being mauled by a demon, I also thought, “Being eaten alive is definitely an unacceptable way to die.”
I slashed my sword through the air, expecting the blade to pass through the beast lunging toward me, but surprisingly, it made contact with a firm body and knocked it to the ground. The demon screeched and the hair on my neck and arms stood on end. It was every bit as unholy a sound as you’d expect, considering it was a demon and all.
I quickly regained my footing as the demon sprang to its feet, its arm bearing the gash from the blade of my sword. The wound didn’t bleed or ooze though. Instead, a strange yellow glow peeked out from beneath the open skin of the demon. “Inti!” Keira yelled. “Cast them back to the Underworld!”
Inti raised his hands and murmured, “I command you to return to your permanent residence, and to leave the servants of the supreme ruler, Inti, alone and unharmed.” At this point, I wanted to interrupt and remind him I sure as hell didn’t serve him, but since he was trying to banish the demon who still looked at me like I was lunch, I wisely kept my mouth shut.
The demons that had surrounded us shrieked in response, and if I hadn’t been completely surrounded by demons, I really would have run off screaming, and even though I know it’s not possible, I would have tried to run all the way back to Baton Rouge. “I command you—” Inti began again, but a man’s voice stopped him. And if there were ever a time to describe a voice as sinister, this was it.
“Supay,” Inti hissed.
Now, considering an actual demon had just tried to rip my throat out, I fully expected their boss to look like Dante’s devil—horns, spiked tail, pitchfork, the works. But he was just this tall dude with an ill-advised goatee that was so early 1990s, and really, it should have stayed there. But maybe he was channeling his inner hipster, which also would have explained a lot about this guy’s evil vibe.
Supay had a bow slung over one shoulder and a single arrow in his hand. And being me, I nodded toward it and said, “Is that like the magic bullet that murdered JFK? One arrow’s going to fly around in circles and kill us all?”
“Gavyn,” Keira whispered, “shut up!”
Joachim kept his bow lowered but an arrow nocked and ready so that he’d only have to lift it to send a deadly projectile at Supay’s heart. And I’d seen that guy shoot. If I were putting money on who could shoot faster, I’d bet on Joachim.
“This land isn’t your concern, Norse,” Supay said. “I’m simply giving you the opportunity to leave before the bloodbath begins.”
Personally, I thought that sounded like a great idea, but since no one else hurried back to our cars, I just stood there stupidly wondering what the hell was wrong with us. I mean, did the words “blood” and “bath” not scare the shit out of gods? Maybe not so much the bath part, but if it was a bath filled with blood—
‘”Gavyn,” Keira scolded. “Snap out of it.”
“I’m snapped,” I lied.
Supay shrugged and said, “Stay and die then. It makes no difference to me.”
Perhaps the guy had some kind of demon-whistle that only evil minions of dark lords could hear because they suddenly broke out of their stupor and lunged at us. Arrows flitted from bowstrings and swords carved the air, occasionally bringing squealing monsters to the hot pavement. But nothing actually killed them. Gashes opened, allowing that strange yellow light to peek through, but the demons always sprang back to their elongated feet—which also had talons at the end, by the way—and hurled themselves at us again.
“Inti,” I yelled, “cast them back to Hell!”
And yeah, they hadn’t technically come from Hell, but close enough.
“I’m trying,” he yelled back. “It’s not working.”
“It’s not what?” Keira and I both yelled at the same time.
And because everything was already going especially well for us, Paricia decided to saunter out of the Government Palace and watch the melee, so naturally, I decided I definitely had to kill that guy first. It’s not that I wanted more gods to fight; it just pissed me off that he found our impending dismemberment amusing.
The demons had closed in on us, forcing us to form a tightly packed circle with our b
acks pressed together. If Inti couldn’t banish them to the Underworld, we’d have to find another way to fight back. Remembering Yngvarr had carried my pistol with him in that admittedly super-cool magic trick way gods had of transporting weapons, I pulled it from my waistband and marveled again at how I’d miraculously not shot myself in the ass.
I aimed at the nearest demon, and even though bullets apparently couldn’t kill them either, they did create the same kind of wounds that allowed the yellow light to escape. I had the sudden idea that if we could open gashes, letting that light seep out, we might at least weaken them enough for Inti to exorcize them. And guns were a hell of a lot faster than arrows, which took time to reload, plus they had the advantage of allowing us to fire from a distance. I wasn’t exactly eager to get close enough to these assholes to repeatedly stab them with my sword. “Shoot them,” I shouted. “Get as many bullet holes in them as you can.”
All around me, gods and demigods put swords and arrows away so they could retrieve handguns, and if they didn’t have one, Yngvarr or Agnes seemed to pull one from thin air, which honestly, was a superpower I really wanted to have. We riddled the demons’ bodies with bullets, opening jagged wounds all over their furry gray torsos, but the bullets never seemed to exit. Maybe the light inside them was like molten lava or something.
I emptied the entire magazine then stared at the handgun in disgust like it was the gun’s fault I’d run out of bullets and hadn’t even killed the damn demon. Inti held up his hands and shouted, “I command you to return to your permanent residence, and to leave the servants of the supreme ruler, Inti, alone and unharmed.”
Now, I might have just imagined what happened next. I mean, it was almost summer in the southern hemisphere so I was hot and battling demons in what felt like the Hell, so who could really say what was real or not? But all those holes I’d created in the wolf-demon I’d emptied my magazine into began to glow brighter as if it really had been filled with molten lava and was about to erupt.
And if the wolf-demon was about to erupt, I was standing way too close. No way did I want to get covered in molten demon juice. I glanced at Keira, and she glanced just as nervously back at me. If I’d had more time, I would have told her I was pretty sure I was falling in love with her and that I was sorry we had to die by demon-juice-drowning, which was definitely not a dignified way to die, but the damn thing did explode.
I braced myself for the inevitable acid demon rain, but only a brief moment of warmth passed over me. When I opened my eyes, the demon was gone. Some of the others had begun to vibrate like they were about to explode, too, so this time, I watched as the odd yellow light burst from their bodies and scattered around the Plaza Mayor before disappearing altogether.
Supay sighed irritably and scowled at me. “Do you have any idea how long it’s going to take for them to regenerate now?”
“Um… am I really supposed to care?”
“Yes,” he snapped. “Because it pisses me off and you should care about pissing off the gods who are trying to kill you!”
I threw my hands up in exasperation. “I want to piss you off because you’re going to kill me, dumbass!”
Keira nudged my arm to get my attention and handed me a sword. “In the future, make sure you’re armed before insulting a god who’s threatening to kill you.”
Supay responded by lifting his bow, but an arrow flew past me before I could even raise my sword. I didn’t need to turn around to know Joachim had shot that arrow. Even though my new friend was a total badass marksman, his arrow embedded in Supay’s shoulder, simply because gods could move so quickly. Before Joachim could nock another arrow, the Incan demigods who’d been recruited by Supay and Paricia spilled into the Plaza Mayor as if every building had come alive with the heroes of an ancient religion.
“Well, this seems ominous,” I said smartly.
“Gavyn, stay behind me,” Yngvarr demanded.
“What?” I demanded back. “No way.”
“If they shoot at us, bullets can’t kill me,” he insisted. “And you’re too important to die at the hands of demigods who were dumb enough to follow the Incan devil.”
Sure, what he was saying sounded logical, but Havard’s ridiculously powerful and annoying genes refused to allow me to put Yngvarr in harm’s way. So as soon as the Incan demigods reached the street, I drew my sword on the closest one. Yngvarr cursed at me, but quickly became preoccupied by some asshole trying to turn him into a paraplegic.
Mama Pacha, who’d been quietly observing this whole time, stamped her foot on the ground and extended her arms, and I thought, “If this is your idea of helping, you could have stayed in the car. Because a getaway driver would be kinda nice right about now, as long as it’s not Agnes.”
I really don’t know how I always have so much time to have such stupid thoughts when I’m in the middle of a battle.
But as it turned out, Mama Pacha wasn’t just trying to cause a distraction by looking silly, because the ground rumbled and shook, gently at first, but soon, none of the Incan demigods could remain standing. And perhaps most shocking was that her earthquake didn’t affect us. Instead, we were like the eye of a hurricane where winds were calm but causing massive damage all around the eyewall.
As Supay’s and Paricia’s heroes fell helplessly to the ground, I grasped what would most likely be my only opportunity to get close to Supay. He noticed me charging him, of course, and raised his bow. Behind me, Keira cried out a warning as Supay released the string and the arrow sailed toward me. And somehow, I slid to the pavement and the arrow went over my head. I stopped only two feet away from Supay’s legs and swung my blade at his knee, forcing him to the ground before leaping to my feet and holding my sword above his neck.
“Let this be a warning to every god who tries to rule through fear and violence,” I said. “I’m coming for you next.”
Chapter Sixteen
News of the takeover in Russia reached us before we could even get to the airport. Two more gods I’d never heard of and whose names I couldn’t pronounce had followed the lead of other forgotten gods and resurfaced, destroying villages and marching into Moscow in a surprising coup. Berstuk and Medeina now held one of the most powerful countries in the world in their dangerous hands.
“Can’t you gods get a better hobby?” I whined as we prepared to board a different flight. Instead of going back to Baton Rouge, we—and by we, I mean Tyr and Agnes—decided to head to Moscow so we could liberate yet another country from the clutches of evil deities whose egos were really too inflated for their own good.
“I had a better hobby until the Sumerians started causing trouble,” Tyr replied, his chin lifting just slightly like he was getting defensive about my frustration with all of the gods.
I waited for a few moments to see if he was going to volunteer the information or if I’d have to annoy the hell out of him first. And apparently, he thought we needed a little annoyance because he didn’t elaborate on this mysterious hobby. “Drowning kittens?” I pretended to guess.
He blinked at me so I continued. “Playing triple-dog-dare with wolves?”
More blinking. Okay, he asked for it.
“Dressing up Loki like a dominatrix?”
“I think that’s a term for women,” Keira interjected helpfully.
“Loki turned into a mare to fool around with a stallion,” I replied. “He can totally pull off a dominatrix.”
Keira nodded. “Good point.”
“Although, he’s already bound. I’m thinking he’s the submissive and Tyr is the dominator,” I said.
I had no idea what got into Keira, but she decided to play along. “True, and given how laid back Tyr is, he’s probably a total wild man in that cave.”
“And Loki’s definitely into some kinky shit,” I added.
“Please stop,” Agnes begged.
But Tyr still hadn’t cracked, and I couldn’t let him win. And besides, I had an ally. She so rarely let her guard down enough to joke aro
und. I didn’t want her falling back into Valkyrie mode. “What do you think Sigyn’s doing the whole time?”
“She’s been stuck in that cave with Loki for centuries,” Keira said. “She’s probably hoping Tyr conveniently forgets Loki’s safe word.”
I choked on the breath I’d just taken and Tyr finally groaned and snapped, “I paint, okay?”
“Paint,” I repeated flatly.
“Paint,” Keira also repeated flatly.
“Shut up,” Tyr sighed.
But I had no intention of shutting up. In fact, I was going to do the exact opposite. “Let me guess. You paint nudes. Like Loki. As a woman. In leather.”
“And straps,” Keira added. “Don’t forget the bondage part.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“Wait,” Yngvarr interjected. “If Loki’s wearing leather, how can Tyr paint nudes?”
“I hate you all,” Tyr said.
“None of you sit next to me on the plane,” Agnes ordered.
“Not even Yngvarr?” I asked. “Just gonna meet him in the bathroom, huh?”
But Agnes wasn’t easily rattled like Tyr. She glanced at Yngvarr, shrugged, and said, “Maybe. I’ll let you know.”
And since she hadn’t transformed back into the five-hundred-year-old witch, Yngvarr just arched an eyebrow at her and said, “I’ll be waiting.”
And none of that was okay. Since I doubted brain bleach actually existed, even in Asgard, I decided I really needed to take a different flight. Keira laughed and told me it was my fault for starting all of this, but she offered to sit with me on the plane to distract me. Naturally, I had to tell her I’d be totally willing to meet her in the bathroom, but she just rolled her eyes and mumbled something that sounded like “village idiot.”
Our flight, which included a layover in Amsterdam, would take nearly eighteen hours, which meant the people of Russia were trapped under the rule of at least two quite likely evil gods for an entire day. And Berstuk and Medeina weren’t only pissed off about being forgotten—they were angry about the destruction of their forests. I didn’t know anything about them, of course, but Keira did and as soon as we reached our cruising altitude, she pulled out her iPad and handed it to me. “Berstuk has always had an evil side to him,” she explained, gesturing to the picture on the screen.
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