Doug exhaled slowly and rubbed his eyes but agreed to try. The gods helped Selena push the water that had fallen onto the lakebed back into the walls, and Doug stared at the muddy ground, his eyes roving over the surface, his face contorted in intense concentration.
Tense minutes passed before Doug shook his head and apologized, “Sorry, Selena. It’s not working.”
“Or it’s not here,” Ares mumbled.
“Shut up, Ares,” Athena scolded.
Ares lifted an eyebrow at his sister but shut up.
Doug crossed his arms over his thick chest and bit his lip, his expression shifting from one of intense concentration to one of intense stubbornness. “Give me a few more minutes. If Selena’s right, the biggest obstacle here is how much I hate the Norse and accepting I’ll always be one of them isn’t exactly sitting well with me.”
“Don’t blame you,” Badb murmured.
Selena shot her a “You shut up, too” look and Badb just shrugged at her.
Jasper stepped closer to Selena’s side and leaned closer to whisper, “We’re wasting our time, Selena. Let’s follow the gods, get the Sword, and go rescue Anita.”
Athena shot her demigod a fierce look but Selena sighed and put a hand on his shoulder. “Ok, we’ll move on.”
“Hold on,” Doug ordered. “I don’t see a burning rainbow bridge or anything, but I’m pretty sure that really white dude on the other side of the lake watching us is Heimdallr.”
Selena squinted against the sunlight at the small figure on the opposite shore, who apparently needed neither binoculars nor sunglasses to watch them in return.
“Where the hell did he come from?” Jasper asked.
“Not hell,” Badb sighed. “But close enough.”
Athena snorted and said, “Should we just ask him for the Sword?”
“May as well. He can hear us anyway.”
“True. I’ve always thought he was cursed, not blessed. Who would want to be able to hear and see that well?”
“Bet he’s seen and heard some really messed up shit in his lifetime,” Jasper added.
“I thought you said his powers were just intuition like any other god?” Selena snapped at Badb.
Badb waved her off. “Mostly. He does have better hearing and vision than us, but I said I doubted he could actually hear grass grow and stuff like that. His heightened senses have been exaggerated.”
“Is this really the most important thing we can be talking about right now?” Doug asked.
“Well, he hasn’t invited us over, so yeah,” Selena joked.
“He’s waiting,” Badb responded. “He wants to see if Doug can find the entrance to their new Asgard. If he does, he’ll blow Gjallarhorn to alert the others.”
“And the Norse can hear that damn horn from anywhere in the world. I hate that horn almost as much as I hate water horses,” Ares added.
Selena crossed her arms angrily and snapped, “Thor did not mention that.”
“It’s not like we didn’t know,” Athena reminded her.
“I didn’t know!”
“Well, how are we supposed to know what you don’t know!” she argued.
“From here on out,” Selena argued back, “just assume I don’t know anything!”
“Um… ladies?” Doug interjected uneasily. “I think Heimdallr is standing in front of a bronze door. And that might just be what we came here to find.”
A loud, bellowing sound shook the air around her and Selena had to grab onto Doug’s arm to keep herself from being knocked to the ground again. Doug put his arms around her but even his massive body struggled against the sound waves Gjallarhorn produced. By the time the noise stopped and Selena was able to look across the empty lakebed again, Heimdallr had drawn his sword and had been joined by three other Norse gods, none of whom she could identify from this distance.
As Thor had promised, he and Tyr weren’t among them. And presumably, neither was Odin. But they hadn’t left their new Asgard unattended and they were prepared to fight.
“Selena, stay behind us,” Badb cautioned. “We have no idea how many more gods will be joining them.”
The massive bronze door opened and a tall, magnificent gray horse flew out, its speed far surpassing that of the water horses. Selena stumbled backward, breathless and dizzy, as she quickly counted the steed’s legs. “Eight,” she whispered. “Sleipnir.”
Her eyes quickly rose to the rider and she fell back onto the shore of the lake. The one-eyed god lifted his spear, his face contorted in a murderous rage. Badb hurled herself on top of Selena’s body and called to her Greek allies, “Get him off Sleipnir!”
Odin’s army of gods followed behind him, unable to keep pace with his eight-legged steed. Selena felt Badb’s body tense as she lifted her sword then heard the metallic clanking as she deflected Odin’s spear. Gungnir never fell to the ground. The magical spear returned to Odin’s hand and Sleipnir stopped above the huddled bodies of Badb and the demigoddess she would die to protect.
“You want revenge, old man, then take me,” Badb bartered.
“I’ll take you both,” Odin growled. “Almost five centuries trapped inside that glass castle. You are a disgrace to the gods!”
He lifted Gungnir again and Selena screamed as the spear left his hand. She gripped Badb tighter, hoping she could heal the goddess if the spear pierced her body this time.
Blue flames arced through the air above her and knocked Odin’s spear off course. Badb scrambled to her feet, keeping her body in front of Selena, but she stood taller and braver with a confidence she’d lacked since Loki’s child and gift to Odin had carried him out of the bronze gate. The blue flames arced above her again and she didn’t need to turn around to see him. She felt him and she knew him, and she recognized this sensation. She’d felt it once before when he threatened to kill Ukko and had come so close to murdering Badb.
“Cameron,” she whispered.
Flames erupted at the feet of Sleipnir and the horse whinnied and attempted to jump over them, but the higher Sleipnir jumped, the higher the wall of flames rose. All along the lakebed where Odin’s warriors had met the Greek war gods, flames reached toward the Heavens, creating a tsunami of steam along the walls of water the gods had created.
“Cameron!” Odin shouted. “Put out this fire!”
“Go to Hell,” Cameron responded.
The flames leapt higher and closer to Sleipnir and the horse screamed, an unearthly, terrifying sound that made Selena cower on the ground, clutching her hands over her ears as tightly as she could, but she couldn’t block out the death cries of the glorious beast. She squeezed her eyes closed but mixed with the cries of Sleipnir were the sounds of the gods in the lakebed burning, crying in their own anguish and torment.
Selena thought she may have cried, too. All around her were the echoes of pain and death and hatred and violence, everything she wanted to free her world from, and she had become a part of it. These were the games of the gods, the battlefields of the mighty, the destinies of the chosen. If she accepted the Cauldron, if she became one of the Tuatha Dé, how many years, how many centuries, would she spend tormenting her enemies, playing their games over treasures or islands or land or realms? How many lives would she claim when her entire existence whispered with the purpose of preserving life?
This was the chessboard of the gods, with humans and demigods and weaker gods as pawns, sacrificial victims to protect the king. One wrong move and checkmate: an entire pantheon would disappear forever.
Badb knelt beside her and pulled her hand away from her ear but Selena didn’t want to listen to her anymore than she wanted to listen to the crackling of the fires around her.
“I want to go home,” Selena cried. “I don’t want to be like this!”
“You’re not,” Badb assured her. “And that’s why you’re so special, Selena. Nothing will change you. But we need to hurry. Odin disappeared as soon as Sleipnir burned, and if we don’t get inside Asgard now, the other Norse will have a chance to r
eturn and the Battle of the Gods will take place here on Earth where innocent people could get hurt.”
“Because of your games,” Selena insisted. “I should have listened to him. He tried to warn me all those weeks ago, and I wouldn’t listen. But that’s all you do.”
“Selena,” Badb began, reaching for her hand again, but Selena slapped it away.
“No!” she screamed. “I’m going home! To Villa Rica. Find your own damn Sword.”
Selena rose from the ground and had to grab Badb’s arm to keep from falling again. The world darkened and seemed to speed up and she felt her legs collapsing beneath her.
“Selena,” he breathed.
But her name was the last thing she heard among the raging fires that broiled around the lake and within the god she would never be able to separate herself from.
Chapter Sixteen
Badb’s pale gray eyes filled with relief as Selena slowly opened her eyes and sat up in a strange room. It didn’t look all that different than the Dagda’s hall in his palace except she didn’t recognize any of the banners or tapestries that decorated the walls here. Her eyes finally rested on a tapestry with an image that looked suspiciously like Mjölnir and she groaned. “Oh God, we’re in Asgard.”
“Technically,” Badb corrected, “a palace within Asgard. And watch it: don’t invoke any gods here.”
Selena groaned again and rubbed her forehead. “What the hell happened?”
“You passed out. You seem to do that a lot,” Badb answered.
“Badb,” Selena sighed. “Don’t be a smartass now. And for the record, up until I met all of you, I’d never passed out in my life. Maybe it was having to listen to all the…”
Selena chewed on her lip and looked around the room again. She could hear low, murmured conversations in another room, most likely the Greek gods and Jasper and Doug looking for the Unbreakable Sword. But she couldn’t sense Cameron anymore.
“Did he disappear again?” she asked quietly.
“No,” Badb answered just as quietly. “He’s outside guarding this palace. We’re pretty sure this is where Tyr lives, and oddly enough, it looks like Thor may live here with him, so we expect to find the Sword here somewhere.”
Selena arched an eyebrow at her and smirked, “They live together? That’s… telling. Especially since I haven’t seen Sif around anywhere.”
“First of all, I told you to knock that god-invoking shit off. Even if it is only… her. As far as I know she’s still alive and is probably with Thor in Russia, but let’s not take any chances. And look at the size of this place. Aonghus lives with his father, you know. And they could wander the halls for days and not run into each other.”
“You gods should consider downsizing. Feudalism and the age of castles is over, you know,” Selena joked.
Badb snorted and helped Selena to her feet. “We have castles in the sky, my Child. Even the cattle have enough pasture to graze. And one day, you and Cameron will have your own.”
Selena felt that odd stirring within her and wrapped an arm around her stomach. She stared at the open doorway, oddly nervous about confronting the man, or the god, she loved but who had abandoned her and had only returned in a literal blaze of glory that killed at least four Norse gods and an eight-legged horse.
“Odin escaped?” Selena asked.
“Names!” Badb hissed. “And yes.”
“But the others…”
Badb sighed and shook her head. “It’s war, Selena. Here or in the Otherworld, gods are going to die. The Norse will just as quickly kill each of us, you know.”
Selena let her hand fall from her stomach and demanded, “But why? People don’t even believe in any of you anymore. What’s the point?”
“The Otherworld is the point, Selena. It’s ours and we don’t want to lose it. There are few realms left outside of Earth, and we have to accept there will always be competition for what is rightfully ours.”
“And maybe destroying the original Asgard was a mistake. This isn’t Asgard. It’s not even a replacement. It’s a hideaway on Earth, and the Norse will never be satisfied as long as they’re forced to live here while you’re…”
The shattering of glass interrupted her and both goddess and demigoddess blinked at each other then ran toward the sound. Doug and Jasper stood in the middle of a room, but Selena immediately knew they hadn’t found the Unbreakable Sword by the expression on Jasper’s face. He glanced up at the women in the doorway and pointed to Doug. “He knocked it over.”
A blue and silver glass urn lay shattered on the floor. Doug just lifted a shoulder and pulled the drawers from a desk by the wall. Selena watched the contents, mostly papers and books and what appeared to be the kind of travel maps tourists would pick up at gas stations, spill to the floor. She bent down to pick up one of the maps and flipped it over in her hands.
“Why the hell would a bunch of gods need a map of Texas and Oklahoma?”
Badb snorted and nodded toward the upturned bed. “Must be Thor’s room. Maybe he kept getting lost on his way home.”
Only Doug and Jasper thought she was funny. Selena tossed the map onto the pile of papers by the desk and muttered, “I’m going outside.”
Badb grabbed her arm to stop her, but Selena brushed her off. “He’s still here, right? I’ll be fine.”
“Yes, but…” Badb pressed her lips together and shifted her weight nervously.
“But what?” Selena demanded.
Badb scratched the back of her neck and shifted her weight again, but wouldn’t meet her eyes. “He asked me to keep you inside.”
“He what?” Selena shouted.
“Sh!” Doug and Jasper hissed.
“We’re kind of breaking and entering here. I don’t recommend shouting,” Doug added.
“He’d better have a damn good reason for telling you that,” Selena said only somewhat quieter.
Badb glanced over her shoulder at Jasper, who pretended to concentrate on tearing apart the armoire on the opposite side of the room. “Let’s talk somewhere else,” she suggested.
Selena backed out of the room and glanced down the dimly lit hallway. It crossed with another dimly lit hallway to her left, but if she went to her right, she would end up in the same hall she and Badb had just left. She decided to take her chances that she could find her own way out of this labyrinth.
Selena ran down the hallway and Badb followed her. She knew she couldn’t outrun the war goddess. She was a war goddess, after all, but she wasn’t above playing her own manipulative games when it involved the one person her soul needed in order to continue in its existence, in this life or any other.
Badb grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop at the intersection of the hallways and Selena spun around and screamed, a pained, tortured scream that echoed off of the tall, heavy walls of the palace. Badb let go, most likely out of surprise rather than fear, and began to ask her what was wrong, but Selena ran again. She only made it three steps before Cameron appeared in the hallway, his dark eyes vacillating between Selena and Badb, but Selena immediately recognized the inhuman anger behind them.
“Badb, get out of here!” Selena yelled. She latched onto his arm before he could follow Badb wherever she went.
“What did she do to you?” Cameron asked, his voice husky and rough and unrecognizable. Selena took a deep breath and watched him carefully. This wasn’t the man she had met in an alleyway in New Orleans who had risked his life to save hers, a woman he didn’t even know. This wasn’t the demigod whose constant smartass jokes had so quickly endeared her to him, even though she had never wanted to trust another demigod again. This wasn’t the soul that had spoken to hers so many times before and had promised her she’d come home at last.
“Nothing,” Selena whispered. “Cameron… what’s happened to you?”
Cameron looked down at his arm where she gripped it tightly and shook his head. “I’m supposed to protect you, Selena. From any threat. Just because she’s Irish doesn’t mean she
gets a free pass…”
“Cameron, she’s never hurt me! Right now, the only person hurting me is you!”
“No,” he insisted, “that’s why I stayed outside. I won’t let anyone near…”
Selena wouldn’t let him finish that errant thought either. “I mean you’re hurting me here,” Selena said, slapping her chest. She let go of his arm and pushed him against the wall. “What is wrong with you? You left me in New Orleans! You just took off, and I spent a day and a half in the Dagda’s palace waiting for you to return but you never did.”
“Ow,” Cameron mumbled, rubbing the back of his head. He moved away from the wall and looked over his shoulder at the sconce Selena had knocked him into. “Ok, first, that hurt, but I guess I deserved it. And secondly…”
Cameron bit his lip in that nervous way of his, and Selena smiled at him and touched his hand. “There, you big baby. No more headache. You can finish speaking without the concussion.”
He stared at his boots and sighed but didn’t answer her.
“Cameron, we’re somewhere inside Thor and Tyr’s palace trashing the place looking for a stolen Sword. A stolen Sword we should be finding ourselves. We don’t have all day.”
Cameron shook his head but kept his eyes on the ground. “You shouldn’t be with me, Selena. Not anymore. You were right.”
“I was right,” she repeated quietly.
Cameron only nodded.
Selena slipped her hand inside his and waited for some punch line and that sexy, mischievous grin to emerge on his beautiful face, but he only pulled at the end of a tapestry hanging on the wall and refused to look at her or respond.
“So you were going to ditch me because you’ve changed?” Selena snapped. She could hear her voice rising again but couldn’t seem to control her anger or her volume. Only two days before, he’d sat across from her mother and assured her he was a better man than her father and would never abandon her, especially when she needed him, and how could she ever stop needing him? And how could Cameron not know that?
When he still didn’t answer her, Selena pushed him into the wall again, and for the second time, he hit his head on the sconce behind his head. He grimaced and rubbed his head again, but Selena had no intention of allowing him to distract her this time.
Treasures of the Gods (The Unbreakable Sword Series Book 3) Page 15
