Treasures of the Gods (The Unbreakable Sword Series Book 3)

by S. M. Schmitz

  “Because he’s…” Cameron inhaled slowly and put an arm around her. “I see things differently now, Selena. I can’t explain it. Badb hates him because he betrayed the old gods. I’m not one of the old gods.”

  Selena lifted her head and gaped at him. “You’re starting to trust him?”

  “No,” Cameron insisted firmly. “Hell, this is the same god that’s been trying to kidnap you for years. The guy’s a grade-A bastard. But I just get what Anita was saying about most gods being more complex than we realize. I’m not sure he’s as evil as we thought he was.”

  “Cameron! He…” Selena looked at the door helplessly as she struggled to find the right words, but they failed her. Ukko had made her life miserable. He’d taken her Aunt Tara away from her; he’d stolen the past three years of her life and replaced her happy, comfortable existence with one of fear and loneliness.

  “I know,” he said softly. “And I’ll never let him near you. But… I don’t think he’d hurt you. And I told him he can’t pimp me out to kill anyone so I’m thinking whatever I end up having to do won’t be that bad, and if it gives you some closure about Alan, it’s totally worth it.”

  “Cameron, is that why you did this?”

  Cameron smiled at her and lifted a shoulder. “How many times do I have to tell you there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you?”

  Selena traced her fingers along his jaw and kissed him, but for the second time that evening, a knock on their door interrupted them. Cameron scowled at it and yelled, “Go away! We’re busy!”

  “You’re always busy,” Jasper yelled back. “Open the damn door!”

  “Why?” Cameron whined.

  “Because Anita is freaking out over here!”

  “Goddamn it,” Cameron muttered.

  “I know which god this time,” Selena said. She pulled her feet onto the bed and opened the door again.

  Jasper barreled in with a small and fragile looking Anita cowering beside him. She immediately turned around and locked the door then faced Cameron and Selena. “I have the strangest feeling,” she said uneasily. “I haven’t felt this in…” She swallowed and looked around the room then closed her eyes. “Have you sensed anything unusual, Cameron?”

  “Like Ukko?” he asked.

  Selena kicked him and he shot her a “What did I say?” look.

  Anita opened her eyes and inhaled sharply. “He’s here?”

  “He was,” Cameron said, scooting down the bed out of Selena’s reach.

  “Oh, no,” Anita moaned.

  “Why does he worry you?” Cameron asked cautiously.

  Anita grunted at him then gestured toward Selena. “Because we’re all risking our lives to protect her! Why would he suddenly not worry you?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. The guy’s still on my shit list. But given how many others have been added to that list, he’s fallen kinda to the middle. Turns out, he showed up to warn us that Mithra is recruiting assassins to try to knock me off and offering Selena as the prize, which Ukko obviously doesn’t appreciate since he thinks Selena is his prize.”

  “Great,” Anita said, sinking into the same chair Ukko had occupied only moments before. “So how many more gods are after us now?”

  “I told you,” Jasper interjected. “You two have some weird god voodoo thing going on.”

  Cameron squinted at him but apparently remembered his promise to Selena to be kinder to his Greek nemesis. “He didn’t know,” Cameron told Anita. “But he inadvertently delivered some other shocking news, and I may have agreed to owe him a favor in exchange for hunting someone down to find something out for us.”

  “God, you’re such an idiot,” Jasper exclaimed.

  Cameron gave Selena a look that implored her to let him do something but Anita did it for him. “Jasper, don’t be such a jerk. Cameron knows what he’s doing. And I’m sure he put qualifiers on what he was willing to do.”

  “Yeah, of course. No killing. No mass carnage. Probably should have included no kidnapping. Damn.”

  Anita smiled at him and assured him, “I doubt it will be anything like that. He’ll call on you when the agency has a mission he doesn’t have the personnel to complete. Powerful gods can move entire teams of demigods and human agents and soldiers instantaneously into highly secure areas.”

  “That sounds dangerous,” Selena said nervously.

  “That sounds kinda badass,” Cameron said.

  Selena kicked at him again but he was too far away from her now. “You can move people without having to go with them, right? Otherwise, I’m going, too. Just in case you need me.”

  “No way. I can’t heal lethal injuries. In fact, once we’ve found the Cauldron and this war is over, you shouldn’t leave the Otherworld again.”

  “Whoa, dude, there’s protective and then there’s controlling,” Jasper said. “You just crossed that line.”

  Cameron’s eyebrows pulled together and he blinked at him then blinked at Selena. “No, that’s not what I meant… I…” He bit his lip as his apology floundered. Anita shifted in her chair and Selena glanced at her. The psychic put a hand on Jasper’s arm and asked him, in that gentle, maternal way of hers, “Would you go back to our room and keep an eye out for any tall blonde Finnish gods? Don’t want anyone snooping around us either.”

  Jasper nodded at her but he seemed to buy her reason for getting rid of him just as much as Selena did. As soon as the door closed behind him, Anita leaned forward and tilted her head as her green eyes studied Cameron. “Don’t let Jasper get to you, Cameron. I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve never felt anything like this. I suspect Badb knows, but good luck getting her to tell you.”

  Cameron grunted his agreement. Increasingly, Selena found herself agreeing with him about the war goddess. She picked at the edge of her fingernail again and asked Anita, “Do you think it’s because he’s a god now? It’s just changing his personality? If you’ve never met a young god before, you wouldn’t know how they’re different.”

  Anita shook her head and Cameron reached across the bed to get Selena to stop picking at her nail. “I’ve met young gods before. You’d be surprised who walks through Ukko’s doors.”

  Selena sat up, her heart accelerating and causing the deafening pounding of blood to rush through her ears. If Anita had known gods who underwent this transformation then she knew how it might change Cameron, what he would lose in the process, and what parts of the man she loved she’d have to say goodbye to forever. “It makes them different, doesn’t it? Becoming a god changes them. How?”

  Anita shrugged. “It makes them more powerful.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Ninurta said it changes a demigod because he gives up what makes him part-human. He can’t stay the same,” Selena argued.

  “Is that why you’ve been so worried lately?” Anita asked. “Silly me, I thought it was because half the supernatural world seems to want us dead and we have an impossible mission to accomplish.”

  “Anita,” Selena sighed, “none of that matters if I lose Cameron. None of it.”

  Selena felt his fingers slip around her hand and he held onto her tightly.

  That spark of familiarity, of recognition, whispered in her soul once more. Never again.

  “And that,” Anita said, “is what I’m talking about. What the hell was that?”

  Selena and Cameron both shook their heads. “We don’t know,” Selena answered. “The first couple of times it happened, we thought it was just because we were from the same pantheon.”

  “I’m no help here other than telling you demigods from the same pantheon don’t experience whatever this is. And as for what Ninurta told you, demigods do have to give up what makes them part human. They give up their mortality.”

  “That’s it?” Selena squeaked.

  “Gods can die, of course, but it’s not the same. Gods can potentially live forever. If you think about it, that’s actually a pretty big sacrifice to make. And I’m sure over time, a lot of the gods d
o change because after a thousand years, who wouldn’t?”

  “Now would you stop worrying I’m going to turn into Jabba the Hutt?” Cameron asked.

  Selena pretended to think about it. “If you do turn into Jabba the Hutt, that’s a deal breaker for me.”

  Cameron nodded in pretend agreement. “Admittedly, if I have to fight one more snake, it’s a total possibility.”

  “At least you didn’t get swallowed by one,” Anita said. She moved the curtains aside and peered outside on the walkway before standing. “If Mithra and his army of assassins show up, try not to ditch Jasper and me here, ok? With Badb back in the Otherworld, we don’t have a god around to defend us.”

  Cameron arched an eyebrow at her and quipped, “I’m sure Ukko would come back to defend you.”

  Selena kicked him again.

  Anita gasped, “He knows I’m here?”

  “Um… yeah, sorry. We may have let that cat out of the bag,” Cameron said.

  “What did he…?” She shook her head and waved a hand at him. “It doesn’t matter. Hopefully, Doug will have a location for us tomorrow and we can manage one night without some god trying to kill us.”

  “Doubt it,” Cameron responded. “Our history doesn’t exactly bode well for us.”

  Anita smiled weakly at him and told them both to get some rest. They sat in silence until they heard her door close then Selena pushed his arm and chastised him. “Don’t tease her about Ukko! That was thirty years ago.”

  “Yeah,” Cameron laughed, “but it’s Ukko. I don’t think he’s any different now than he was in the 80s.”

  “You just said he’s more complex than you previously thought. Obviously still not a stand-up guy but not evil either. And he did warn us about the invasion on Samhain Eve. He has a vested interest in making sure some equally creepy god doesn’t abduct me, but I still haven’t figured out why he bothered to let the Tuatha Dé know about Ninurta.”

  Cameron yawned and lay back on the bed. “Like I said. He had nothing to lose. Or maybe he figured the Tuatha Dé would be easier to overthrow one day than Ninurta and his followers. I still don’t think Ukko’s the kind of god who does anything without expecting something in return.”

  Selena lay beside him and put her arm around his stomach, resting her head against his chest. “No,” she agreed. “He’s not. That’s what’s so scary about him. We’ll never really know when we can believe him and when he’s leading us straight into damnation.”

  Cameron snickered and kissed the top of her head. “So he’s the god who damns things. I wanted that job. Think if I off him I can take it over?”

  “I think if you kill him and it’s not self-defense or to defend me, Anita would never forgive you. Despite what she’s said in the past, she’s still in love with him.”

  “I want that lobotomy now.”

  “And he’s still in love with her.”

  “I need that lobotomy now.”

  Selena tightened her arm around him and sighed. “He chose his job over her. There’s nothing in this universe I would choose over you. Why do you think he did that?”

  “Selena, it’s Ukko. He also has no problems kidnapping demigods to force them to work for him and having demigods and gods murdered who refuse. We’re not exactly talking about a normal, rational person here.”

  “Exactly,” Selena sighed. “And that’s why he worries me. We know gods like Quetzalcoatl and Ninurta and Mithra are our enemies. Ukko is playing it both ways so that we won’t know one way or the other anymore, and sooner or later, we’re going to find out on his terms.”

  Chapter Seven

  Doug called Anita early the next morning to let Cameron and the demigods know he’d been given a task by the Norse gods: find Cameron and negotiate for Mjölnir. The Norse had offered multiple rewards in exchange for Thor’s hammer, but none of them were the Unbreakable Sword, and they remained as secretive about their location as before.

  “Maybe I should offer to meet Thor somewhere,” Cameron said. “Pretend to consider his offer since they apparently think I have some great need for a Gae Assail. What the hell is that anyway?”

  Selena glanced up from her coffee where she was stirring her sugar and creamer, turning it that perfect shade of toffee brown. “It’s a spear. Supposedly one of Lugh’s. He had several, but the one you have now is the original Spear from Findias.”

  “Why do I need more than one spear? And how did they end up with more than one of Lugh’s spears?”

  Selena blew on her coffee and shrugged. “He probably carried several of them into battle with him. Some are better for throwing and some are better for stabbing. And no, I don’t know the difference. That’s your job. If they didn’t know which of Lugh’s spears was the Spear, one of the Treasures of the Gods, they probably just took them all.”

  Cameron grunted and sat on the edge of the bed. “Well, now I want it back just because those bastards stole it from my ancestor.”

  “They want to trade you Mjölnir for it and that’s a trade we can’t make,” Selena argued. “They can get Thor’s weapon for the Unbreakable Sword only.”

  “And really, Cameron,” Anita scolded. “You should be reading up on your own history. This is your legacy and life now.”

  Cameron snorted and raised an eyebrow at her. “Sorry, Ms. Granger. As soon as gods stop trying to kill my girlfriend and me, I’ll get right on that.”

  “Um… is now a good time to remind everyone that I’m still on the phone?” Doug asked.

  “Come across any giant mythological snakes lately?” Cameron asked.

  “Have I… what?” Doug responded.

  “Snakes,” Cameron repeated. “Big ones. Like big enough to swallow, say… a grown man.”

  “Or woman,” Anita added.

  Doug was silent for a few seconds before asking, “What is wrong with you people?”

  “Still not sure,” Cameron replied. “But after fighting Quetzalcoatl and Caoranach, I never want to battle another serpent again.” Cameron stared at the phone then hastily threw in, “Unless it’s a spider. Are there any giant spiders we need to watch out for?”

  “In the cornfields,” Selena reminded him.

  “Right, which is why we’re not going back to Nebraska. I’ll bet that’s where the Norse are hiding. With attack spiders all around the field.”

  Jasper shot Anita an imploring look. “Make them stop.”

  Cameron ignored him and grabbed his phone from the nightstand. Selena looked over his shoulder then rolled her eyes. “Just because Wikipedia lists almost a hundred different mythological serpents doesn’t mean they’ll all try to eat us. Or that they’re all real.”

  “Want me to look up spiders then?” he asked, that mischievous grin appearing as he peeked up at her from the phone in his hands.

  Selena’s heart beat faster and she smiled back at him with her own mischievous grin. “Spiders are a deal breaker for me.”

  “Don’t blame you.”

  On the other end of Anita’s phone, she heard Doug sighing. “Should I call later?”

  “Won’t matter,” Anita told him. “It’s rare to find Cameron in a serious mood, and if you do, chances are, you don’t want to be around.”

  Cameron nodded but didn’t look up from the screen where he tapped on a link to read about Fafnir. “First of all, this dude is a dragon and shouldn’t be listed here. And secondly, if I’m being serious, get out of the room because one of two things is about to happen: some god is going to try to kill us or my girlfriend and I are about to…”

  “Cameron!” Selena laughed.

  That devilish grin reappeared as he looked up from his phone and met her eyes. “What? I was just going to say we’re about to go to sleep. Can’t be a smartass when I’m sleeping.”

  “Annoying, isn’t he?” Jasper asked Doug.

  “He’s a god. Do I have to answer that?” Doug responded.

  “Can you smite him through a phone?” Jasper asked Cameron.

 
Cameron lifted a shoulder but his attention was back on his screen. “Don’t know. I can give it a shot.”

  Anita threw her arms up and exclaimed, “How are we going to get the Unbreakable Sword?”

  Selena snatched the phone out of Cameron’s hands and hissed, “Focus!”

  “I was! If they have Jörmungandr guarding our Sword, I need to be prepared!”

  “If they have Jörmungandr guarding your Sword, I’ll take my chances with Athena,” Jasper muttered.

  Selena waved a hand toward the Greek demigod and pretend-scolded Cameron. “Now look what you’ve done.”

  “Ok, know what?” Doug interrupted. “I’ll go find this sword myself.”

  “While you’re at it, get my other spear back,” Cameron called out to the phone in Anita’s hand. Anita hit the red disconnect button before Doug could respond.

  “So now we just wait until the Norse make a better offer?” Selena complained.

  “This is ridiculous,” Jasper insisted. “There must be someone else who can at least give us some clues as to where we should be looking for the Norse.”

  “Thor’s a big guy,” Cameron said. “IHOP maybe?”

  “Don’t say it,” Selena warned Jasper. The Greek demigod closed his mouth but glared at Cameron. “And we may know someone who can give us some advice, but it won’t be pleasant,” Selena finished.

  “None of this is pleasant,” Cameron told her then quickly corrected himself. “None of this god and sword hunting is pleasant. The parts with you?”

  “Don’t elaborate,” Selena warned Cameron. She seemed to spend half her time warning someone about misbehaving now.

  “We’re not all psychic here,” Jasper reminded her. “You’re going to have to tell us your plan out loud.”

  “And for some reason, I’m picking up that you think I’m not going to like it,” Anita added cautiously.