Shadows of the Gods (The Unbreakable Sword Series Book 1)

by S. M. Schmitz

  A neatly made bed with orange and brown blankets was shoved into the corner of the room. A single brown dresser stood next to it, but there was nothing on it. She crossed over the faded brown carpet and quietly opened the top drawer. It was just as empty as the top of the dresser.

  “Shocking,” Selena muttered.

  He’d hung no pictures or paintings on the walls, and the open sliding closet door already told her there were no clothes hanging in his closet, only two wire hangers that looked like they hadn’t been used in years. She hadn’t known wire hangers could rust, but then again, she hadn’t lived in one place long enough to have a closet or hangers in years.

  Selena flicked the light switch off and pulled the blankets back on the bed. She realized too late that she should have checked under the covers for spiders or any other unwelcome guests, but she was too tired to thoroughly inspect the bed for whatever might lie beneath the sheets.

  She pulled the blankets back over her and closed her eyes, wondering how she could be in the heart of some huge swamp and have it be so quiet. It was almost as unnerving as the living mummy in the other room. Selena closed her eyes and tried to ignore the strong smell of smoke that still clung to her clothes and hair. She hoped everyone had gotten out of the nightclub alive and unhurt. She understood why Bruce hadn’t extinguished the fire if he really had so much control over it, but at the same time, if people had died, had it been worth it?

  She was positive her life wasn’t more valuable than anyone else’s. Perhaps it could be if she lived in a different world where she would be allowed to make her gifts known and use them to save others, but she didn’t live in that world. Instead, the descendants of the gods were hunted like wild animals and given a choice: conformity or death.

  Selena wanted to believe she was strong enough to choose death, but she’d come so close to surrendering to them before Bruce rescued her in a narrow alleyway of the French Quarter in New Orleans. She wasn’t even goddess enough to sacrifice herself for the good of others.

  Whatever pantheon she came from, she suspected they must all be selfish and capricious gods. Maybe she was Greek after all. She’d long suspected she was and had gone looking for the proof once. Selena yawned and rolled toward the dark door and wondered one last time what secrets Bruce was hiding. Nobody who wore a mask should be trusted, she told herself. Except I have no one left to trust.

  A strange orange-yellow light filtered through the curtains of the single window in the bedroom Selena woke up in. She blinked and stared at the ugly brown paneling and tried to remember why she was in such a completely brown room. A loud crash in the front of the house startled her and she sat up, pushing the blankets off of her as she placed herself. Camp. Swamp. Batman.

  Goddamn it.

  She didn’t know which god was supposed to be damning anything either.

  Selena pulled the door open and peeked into the hallway. The dark, covered figure of her mummified Batman appeared near the doorway of the kitchen. “Lunch?” he asked.

  “Lunch,” Selena repeated.

  “Yeah, you slept through breakfast.”

  “You’re cooking like that?”

  Bruce actually looked down at his body like he didn’t know what she was referring to.

  “Seriously, Bruce. The gloves. You can’t even take those off?”

  He shrugged and held up the skillet. “Keeps me from burning myself.”

  “If you need full body armor to cook a meal, then congratulations, Bruce. You’re even more accident prone than I am.”

  Bruce’s head nodded and he disappeared behind the wall of the kitchen. Selena followed him. She smelled coffee and offered a silent prayer to any god that might be listening that there was some left. Her eyes settled on the half-full pot and she smiled and shot Bruce a hopeful look.

  “Mugs are in the cabinet,” he told her.

  Selena opened a few cabinets before finding the right one then smiled at Bruce again as she poured her coffee. “Do you know of any religions that had coffee gods? Maybe I’m descended from a coffee god.”

  Bruce turned the heat down on the stove and shook his head. “Food, wine, stuff like that. Coffee beans are originally from Africa, aren’t they? You don’t look like you’re descended from an African god.”

  Selena held her pale arm out in front of her and thought about it. “In every religion I know of, gods were around before humans. I don’t even know how many of the original gods are still… alive.”

  “Don’t know either,” Bruce agreed. “We know they’re not technically immortal, but as long as someone doesn’t kill a god, he can live indefinitely. Regardless, they aren’t exactly showing up to help any of us out so I’m betting my unpaid-for-car on most are still alive and just in hiding. Hand me the pepper.”

  Selena reached across the counter and plucked up the pepper. She watched as he seasoned two fish filets and heard herself asking, “Did you seriously go fishing this morning?” She had no idea why she asked him that. Maybe it was trying to envision him fishing dressed up as Snake Eyes, and even in her world that was filled with absurdities and impossibilities, that was just too much to believe.

  Bruce stopped shaking the pepper and his head turned toward her. She suspected he was gaping at her, but his damn mask prevented her from seeing his eyes or facial expressions.

  “Well, we’re surrounded by water, aren’t we?” she asked.

  “They were in the freezer, Selena.”

  “Did you catch them? Before freezing them?”

  Bruce set the pepper down and put a gloved hand on his hip. “Yeah, why?”

  “Like that?” Selena gestured toward his Snake Eyes uniform.

  She heard him sigh and he picked up the tongs on the counter and put the fish in the hot skillet. They sizzled in the melted butter and Selena’s stomach rumbled. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday morning.

  “How are you even going to eat through that thing?” Selena pressed.

  “Why is this bothering you so much?” Bruce shot back.

  “Because being so unwilling to share your name or any personal information or take off your mask or gloves or even your shoes is freaking me out.”

  Selena sipped on her coffee, but Bruce apparently wasn’t going to answer her. He grabbed a spatula and flipped the filets over, and Selena rolled her eyes at him.

  “Fine,” she acknowledged. “I get it. You saved my life. You don’t owe me anything. But to be fair, I didn’t try to kill you in your sleep so we’re sort of even.”

  Bruce snickered and pointed toward a cabinet. “Hand me a plate.”

  Selena set her coffee down and pulled the cabinet door open. “I’m going to help you figure out your ancestry, Bruce. A powerful sun god. An inability to say please or thank you. Helios, maybe?”

  Selena flinched at the name and Bruce’s hand froze in mid-air. She wondered if he was gaping at her again.

  “Selene,” he breathed.

  Selena shook her head. “I can’t be related to you. I’m not a moon goddess. I don’t even know what powers a moon goddess would have.”

  “Nobody knows why telekinetics have that particular power.”

  Selena shook her head again. “No. The names are just coincidental.”

  Bruce took the plate from her and put one of the fish filets on it. “I doubt I’m related to Helios anyway.”

  “No,” Selena agreed. “Maybe Ra.”

  “Don’t think I’m Egyptian.”

  “You and your insistence that we descendants have to look like the humans who worshipped the gods.”

  Bruce grabbed two forks and gestured toward the table. Selena didn’t care if coffee and fish were the worst possible combination in culinary history: she was finishing them both. She sat at the table across from where he’d placed his plate, and he handed her one of the forks.

  “We should resemble our ancestors. The gods had offspring with humans who lived in the same area, so why wouldn’t we?”

  “What do I look l
ike then? Besides white.”

  Bruce’s head tilted and she guessed he was studying her. She hated those damn reflective lenses that covered his eyes.

  “Northern European,” he decided. “But I wouldn’t rule out Slavic.”

  Selena’s eyes drifted to the fish on his plate then back to the mask that covered his face. If he somehow managed to eat that filet without removing his mask, then he really did have supernatural powers no other demigod possessed.

  Bruce picked up his plate and shook his head at her. “Eat your lunch,” he said.

  “Are you kidding me?” she called after his retreating back. She heard the door to the bedroom close and stared stupidly at her own plate. She took another sip of her coffee and felt a little braver.

  “My room is going to smell like fish now!” she yelled.

  If Bruce cared, he didn’t bother letting her know.

  Selena finished her pan-seared fish and thought about yelling at him again, this time to tell him he was a better cook than he gave himself credit for, but she washed the dishes instead. She heard the bedroom door opening then another door closing and the shower turned on. Selena dried her hands on a dishrag and walked quietly down the short hallway, peeking into the bedroom where Bruce had disappeared so he could eat without having to take his mask off in front of her.

  He’d left his plate on the dresser but nothing else in the room had changed. Even the blankets hadn’t been moved. He’d probably sat on the floor so he wouldn’t disturb what he already considered her space. She picked up his plate and brought it back to the kitchen.

  Selena waited patiently at the table for him to return, having made up her mind that no matter the consequences, she would offer her help to him, just as he had helped her. The water switched off and the small house grew quiet. She watched the clock on the wall. Fifteen minutes passed before the bathroom door opened and he appeared again, remummified in his black and gray attire.

  Selena took a deep breath and nervously twisted the napkin in her hands. The last time she’d trusted someone with her secrets, he’d betrayed her and she didn’t even know this man. She’d loved Alan and thought he’d loved her in return.

  “You’re scarred, aren’t you?” she asked.

  Bruce stopped tugging at his sleeves to tuck them inside his gloves and his face turned toward her. He was probably gaping at her again. She had a way of causing that reaction in just about anyone she met.

  “What?” he asked.

  “That’s why you keep your body covered. You’re scarred. You’re afraid I’ll judge you. Please don’t be. I may be able to help.”

  Bruce let his hand fall from his sleeve and she heard him inhaling. She braced herself for the inevitable questions and even the possibility that he would turn around and bring her to the men who had chased them out of New Orleans.

  “You can help,” he repeated quietly.

  Selena nodded. “I want to. And I won’t judge you, Bruce, I promise…”

  “Cameron,” he said.

  Selena blinked at him. He pulled a chair away from the table and sat in it.

  “You started calling me Bruce last night, but my name is Cameron.”

  “Cameron,” Selena whispered. She smiled at him and told him, “That’s a much better name than Bruce.”

  He snorted and shrugged at her. “I didn’t choose either one.”

  Selena put the napkin down and hid her hands beneath the table. Her fingers trembled because she didn’t want to have this conversation with him any more than he wanted to, but if he was going to try to keep her out of their hands for more than one night, then he deserved to know the truth. And he deserved her help if he wanted it.

  “I’ve been thinking about your gift… and my own. How I had to learn to use them just as I had to learn to walk and speak and everything else I can do. And maybe when you were a young child, you couldn’t control fire like you can now and it burned your entire body. That’s why you hide beneath this costume like you’re Peter Parker or something. Actually, Snake Eyes would still be way more fitting.”

  “You read a lot of comic books,” Cameron interrupted.

  Selena smiled and lifted a shoulder at him. “I spent a lot of time alone. I can’t touch anyone without them noticing there’s something strange about me. They can feel it.”

  “And what is it you think you can do for me?” Cameron asked.

  Selena closed her eyes and remembered the last time she’d used this power she’d long been warned to keep a secret, a power that could transform the way the New Pantheon operated and could catapult it from working with the United States’ government to overthrowing it, which she’d suspected for years now was its goal all along. After all, it wasn’t in any deity’s nature to be someone’s servant.

  And having the power of immortality at their fingertips would ensure their success at subversion.

  “I can heal,” Selena said.

  “Heal,” Cameron repeated. There was something unusual in his voice, but she couldn’t place it. It wasn’t skepticism and doubt or even the calculating tone of a man trying to decide how much the New Pantheon would be willing to pay for her. She lifted her eyes but she couldn’t meet his; they were behind the lenses of his mask.

  “The last time I healed someone was three years ago. My boyfriend was a demigod who I thought was trying to escape them as well, and he knew there was something unusual about me, but I never told him anything other than I was telekinetic. We were in Greece, trying to uncover any connection to my ancestry when they caught up to us. The tall man with the blonde hair caused the building we were in to collapse and Alan was crushed beneath a pile of sheetrock and cinderblocks. I thought he was dead…”

  Selena closed her eyes again as she tried to forget the memory of his broken body, the ripped skin and exposed bone, the stillness of his chest and his heart. “I healed him. He survived. And when he realized what I’d done, he refused to leave with me. He didn’t run.”

  She heard Cameron inhale again and she opened her eyes and stared at the black and gray mask. “He joined them. You saved his life and he joined them. Why?”

  Selena shook her head. “Maybe he was always one of them. I’ve had three years to think about it, and maybe they suspected I was a healer all along. Everyone knows they’ve been looking for one for a long time. So they sent a handsome young man my way to pretend like he was also trying to hide from them, and eventually, when I didn’t give up my secret on my own, they forced me to act.”

  “But what made them suspicious of you in the first place?”

  “Who knows? The wrong person bumping into me at the supermarket maybe. It’s not something I can hide. I could have spent my life covered like you to hide it, but I chose not to.”

  “And you’re telling me this because you think you can help me,” Cameron sighed.

  “It won’t hurt to try,” Selena offered. “I’ve gotten rid of scars before. I’ve never tried to heal someone who was extensively scarred, but even if it helps…”

  Cameron reached up to his mask and pulled it off and Selena gasped. She blinked and stared back at the handsome young man in front of her, whose face bore no signs of scars or injury. With his dark brown hair and chocolate brown eyes, his high cheekbones and soft pink lips, he wasn’t just normal: he was remarkably attractive and Selena felt her cheeks flushing and finally pulled nervously at the napkin on the table again.

  How stupid she’d been for telling him the truth, for thinking he needed her help, for trusting him. He was another Alan, another deception, another trick they engineered to trap her, and she’d fallen for it. Again.

  “Selena,” he said quietly, “I haven’t hid behind a mask for twenty-seven years because I’m deformed. I’ve done it because I’ve been able to live a normal life without the New Pantheon knowing anything about me. They have no idea who I am. I’ve never had to run. I’ve lived in Baton Rouge my whole life and I was able to go to college and I have a job and an apartment. None of my human f
riends know the truth about me. I wasn’t hiding from you because I’m ashamed. I just… I wanted to help you, but I didn’t know if I could trust you.”

  Selena blinked away tears and twisted the napkin tighter in her hands. “And yet, you somehow magically appeared in New Orleans at the exact moment I needed an escape. God, I can’t believe I was this stupid again.”

  “You’re not stupid for wanting to help people. And I’m not one of those guys. But I did follow you to New Orleans.”

  Selena opened her mouth to ask him how he’d even known anything about her, but she never had the chance to even attempt to articulate her questions. The sound of gravel crunching beneath the tires of an approaching vehicle told them that the gods had found them after all.

  Chapter Three

  Cameron grabbed his mask from the table and reached across for her arm, pulling her to her feet. “We’ve got to get out of here. Now.”

  Selena listened as four doors opened then slammed closed. She already knew the fifth god would wait inside the van because she’d witnessed this before; the driver would wait behind the wheel so he could take off as soon as she’d been thrown into the back, assuming they were finally successful. And if Cameron were telling the truth, she wouldn’t be abducted alone.

  Cameron pulled her toward the back of the camp, but they were at least ten feet off the ground. The four men who had come for her had most likely walked beneath the camp to surround it. There wouldn’t be a safe exit for either of them.

  Cameron looked at her and took a deep breath. “I’m burning it down. I won’t let you get hurt. Trust me.”

  Selena shook her head quickly but it was too late; she smelled the smoke coming from the front of the camp and groaned as Cameron pulled her closer to him and wrapped his strong arms around her again.

  “I’m going to need you to help,” he said softly in her ear. “None of them can walk through fire. We’re going to try to run through the marsh behind the camp, but I’m not burning down the whole Basin. Bring the camp down on them if you have to. Block their paths. Anything to give us enough time to get to the marsh.”