Goddesses of War (The Guardians of Tara Book 4)

by S. M. Schmitz

  “Um…” Cameron stammered. “I think I forgot to torch a few of Nergal’s spirits. I’ll be outside.”

  Selena grabbed his arm before he could leave and shot him a look that ordered, “Stay,” so he stayed.

  “I think,” Selena offered, “that Baldr is the kind of god who judged you by the way you treat others. Coming to Earth to avenge freeing prisoners who shouldn’t have been in your realm in the first place is exactly the kind of thing he probably doesn’t approve of.”

  “Do you know what it’s like to be cast out of your home?” Hel replied. “To be treated like an outcast and a freak because of who your father is? To be a freak because of a deformity you were born with?”

  “No,” Selena assured her. “But I don’t believe you’re incapable of goodness, Hel, or I wouldn’t have brought you back.”

  “Odin expected us to be wicked because of our parents and judged us as children,” Hel murmured. “My brothers can never be saved. Not now.”

  Cameron grimaced because Jörmungandr was the one giant snake he feared most and the one he still sort of hoped Thor would somehow kill on his own so he wouldn’t have to come to his rescue.

  “Hel,” Badb interjected, “this was completely Selena’s idea. I wouldn’t have given you a second chance, and if you come back to Earth, if you come near Lugh again—”

  “She won’t,” Selena insisted. “She’ll return to her own realm and learn to rule differently. And in time, those who live there will see her differently too.”

  Hel returned her attention to her normal feet and blinked at them as if she still expected them to transform into the useless, gangrenous appendages she’d been born with, the curse she’d felt afflicted with her entire life. She had tried to kill him—more than once—but Cameron felt sorry for her anyway. Maybe Selena was right. She’d seen something in Hel worth saving, and while having a normal body didn’t guarantee the Norse goddess wouldn’t resume her old lifestyle, she deserved the chance to change. After all, it’s not like she went around murdering mortals and gods and harvesting their hearts.

  But Cameron also worried she was about to lament her past again, or worse, her unrequited love, so he sent her back to her realm, which led to disapproving scowls from the two Irish goddesses standing next to him. He just shrugged and claimed, “We’re on the clock here.”

  Badb sighed and asked, “So you learned something about Huitzilopochtli?”

  “Sort of. More like Ukko’s agents have somehow figured out he’s far creepier than we imagined.”

  “I’m not sure I want to hear this,” Selena said.

  Badb nodded. “Although it can’t be worse than what’s in Loki’s head.”

  “Stop right there,” Cameron warned. “If you even think of sharing any of what you learned in there, I’ll banish you to Ellesmere Island.”

  “Huitzilopochtli,” Selena reminded him.

  “Getting to that,” he insisted. “Make Badb stop interrupting me.”

  “Cameron,” Badb groaned. “What did Ukko tell you?”

  “Apparently, the Aztec gods we thought we’d been fighting were already dead. They offered themselves as a sacrifice to Huitzilopochtli who’s been using their likeness, even their memories and personalities, to transform demigods into carbon copies of these dead gods.”

  “That’s possible?” Badb asked.

  “I just ventured into Tartarus to free a bunch of gods who’d been trapped there for a few thousand years so a different Titan would destroy a bronze box in which a psycho Slavic god had trapped his soul. Is this really that much more bizarre?”

  Badb seemed to think about it for a moment then agreed. “Conceded.”

  “But this is kinda good news, right?” Selena asked. “It means if we kill Huitzilopochtli, we don’t have to track down all these individual gods. We only have to worry about finding the other soul-vessels.”

  “Ukko assured me the New Pantheon’s agents were going to work on that as soon as the agency was functioning again, but I suspect we’ll end up involved somehow. Don’t we always have to get involved?”

  Badb nodded then pointed out that even if they only had to deal with Huitzilopochtli now, they had no idea where he was, and since Koschei was still alive, they were operating with diminished senses.

  “But Selena and I have encountered him recently,” Cameron reminded her. “I think he’s still in the Seventh Heaven. Maybe if we destroy what’s left of his world, we can either kill him there or force him to Earth. It’ll kinda ruin Ukko’s plan to trap all these gods there, but what choice do we have?”

  “Okay,” Badb said. “When we destroyed Asgard, Lugh made us enchanted swords, and—”

  “We don’t have time for that,” Cameron insisted. “And we can’t all go into the Seventh Heaven. We need Guardians here and in the Otherworld.”

  “Cameron, do you have any idea how difficult it is to destroy an entire realm?” Badb asked.

  “Not really,” he admitted. “But I saw what was left of Olympus. I know a realm ceases to exist when it’s broken apart and its energy is scattered. Regardless, I’m not planning on going alone.”

  “Of course not,” Selena said. “You’ll be with me.”

  “Um,” Cameron responded sheepishly. “I was actually kinda hoping you’d go back to Murias.”

  Selena shot him a look that said, “Make me,” but he had no intention of even trying to make her return to Murias.

  He offered her a mischievous grin instead and said, “I was hoping I could convince Perses to come with me. Destruction is kinda his thing, right?”

  “Athena had to free Mnemosyne in exchange for his help when we invaded the Sumerian heaven, and you had to free all of the Titans in exchange for his help to destroy one box,” Badb countered. “What exactly are you planning on offering him for this?”

  “Nothing,” Cameron answered. “I was going to get Prometheus to ask him.”

  Badb stared at him in apparent anticipation for the rest of his plan, but that was really all he had, so she threw her hands up and exclaimed, “How can anyone so brilliant be so stupid?”

  “Something tells me that’s rhetorical,” he said smartly.

  “At least she thinks you’re brilliant,” Selena added helpfully.

  “She’s obviously just riding that whole appreciation wave of you bringing her back to life,” he added just as helpfully.

  “Cameron,” Badb snapped, “Prometheus isn’t going to—”

  “I’m not going to what?” Prometheus asked as he entered the room with the other Guardians trailing behind him.

  “Bells,” Cameron told them again.

  “Never going to happen,” Athena stubbornly insisted.

  “Bells?” Prometheus repeated.

  “Don’t ask,” Athena warned him. “With Cameron, it’s usually better not to ask too many questions.”

  “You’re all getting bells so you can’t sneak up on me anymore,” Cameron answered anyway.

  Prometheus blinked at him then turned his attention to Selena. “What does Badb think I’m not going to do?”

  “Ask Perses to come with us to the Seventh Heaven so he can destroy it.”

  So Prometheus turned his attention to Badb. “And why do you think I wouldn’t ask him to do that?”

  “Because why would he? With all of the Titans free now, we have nothing to bribe him with.”

  “I think what Badb means is that she still doesn’t trust you because you’re a Titan,” Cameron said.

  “Cameron,” Badb hissed. “Not helping.”

  “I’m always helping,” he claimed.

  Prometheus glanced between them and murmured, “I never thought I’d miss Tartarus.”

  “You get used to him,” Thor promised. “Eventually.”

  “Badb, I’ll get Perses to help us,” Prometheus said. “See?”

  Perses appeared in their midst, so Cameron looked at Prometheus and said, “Oh, so we’re going to do this now.”

  Promet
heus just grinned at him then asked Perses, “Up for invading the Seventh Heaven and destroying it so we can force Huitzilopochtli out of hiding?”

  “Not even a day,” Perses sighed. “You couldn’t have taken a few hours to see the Grand Canyon or, I don’t know, try Philly cheesesteaks?”

  “Is that a yes?” Prometheus asked.

  Perses grunted at him, but quickly abandoned his attempt to dissuade his newly released friend from just enjoying his freedom for a while and leaving the world-saving to the self-proclaimed Guardians of Tara. “This is the last time,” Perses told Cameron. “After this, figure out how to destroy shit on your own.”

  “Deal,” Cameron quickly agreed. “I mean, how hard can it be to destroy shit?”

  “Cameron,” Badb, Selena, and Athena all groaned.

  “All right,” he laughed. “The Mórrígna should go to the Otherworld to protect it in case Huitzilopochtli shows up there. Everyone else, stay here.”

  “I’ll be in Findias,” Ukko said. “I can’t leave Anita alone. I can’t lose her again.”

  An “aw” escaped Selena’s lips, so Cameron quickly sent Ukko back to Findias before she could nauseate him by talking about Ukko’s feelings.

  “If I make a big deal out of wanting to protect Sif, can I go back to Falias?” Thor asked.

  “No,” Cameron said.

  “Damn it,” Thor sighed.

  “So our entire expedition into the Seventh Heaven is comprised of one sun god, a healer, a god of destruction, and me?” Prometheus asked incredulously.

  “Um… yeah,” Cameron said. “Regretting not going to the Grand Canyon now, aren’t you?”

  “A little.”

  “Go,” Badb ordered. “You can’t keep time frozen indefinitely, and Selena’s not getting any less pregnant.”

  Selena’s cheeks flushed as Perses and Prometheus gaped at her, but Cameron couldn’t resist puffing out his chest just a little. After all, the Titans didn’t need to know the only reason Selena had gotten pregnant so quickly was that Fate had been planning Hanna’s birth for thousands of years.

  “I think Badb is right,” Selena said. “We need to go. Now.”

  Cameron recognized that tone, which meant he would embark on one of his rare moments of not being a smartass so they could leave now. He brought the small group of gods to the edge of the Seventh Heaven where Earth blended into the ethereal beauty of Huitzilopochtli’s world. In the distance, he could see the tip of the reconstructed Templo Mayor where the Aztec god performed his sacrifices, and Cameron shuddered as he thought of those desperate gods who’d voluntarily lain on Huitzilopochtli’s altar just to reclaim their lost power, even if it would be indirectly.

  “Is it just me, or is it suspiciously quiet?” Prometheus asked.

  “You’re new here, so I’m going to give you a pass,” Selena told him. “But from now on, don’t say anything like that again.”

  “Why not?”

  Several gods who looked like Xolotl, Xipe Totec, and Tlaloc appeared in front of them, so Selena pointed in their direction and said, “That’s why.”

  “Good reason,” Prometheus agreed.

  Cameron held up a hand and said, “Before we try to kill each other, I just have to ask. What do you get out of letting a pervy, heart stealing god eat your heart?” Cameron let his hand fall and shook his head. “Never mind. I’m cool with not spending eternity traumatized by that knowledge.”

  The god who looked like Tlaloc rolled his eyes at the young sun god, so Cameron grabbed his Spear and threw it into his heart, killing him again.

  Prometheus immediately lifted his sword and pierced Xipe Totec’s chest then kicked his body away so he could disengage his blade just as Perses shot an arrow through Xolotl’s temple.

  Cameron put a hand on one hip and asked, “You fight with weapons?”

  So Perses put a hand on his hip and shot back, “Of course I can fight with weapons. I am a Titan.”

  “It probably won’t take Huitzilopochtli long to throw more carbon-copy demigods at us, so we should probably bring this place down now,” Prometheus suggested.

  “Technically,” Perses corrected, “I’m going to pull it apart, molecule by molecule until it can’t bind itself together anymore.”

  “Well, this doesn’t sound dangerous at all,” Cameron observed smartly.

  “I’ve done this before, and nobody I didn’t want dead has died yet,” Perses offered.

  “That almost made sense,” Cameron responded.

  The top of the Templo Mayor began to crumble and steam rose from the canals that intersected the land around the temples. All around them, gods—some of whom looked just like the gods the Guardians had already killed in battle over the past few months—charged the small group of gods who’d come to force Huitzilopochtli to meet them on their terms.

  Perses glanced at the ground and it shook and began to break apart, deep chasms cracking through the spring green grass. The gods fell under the earthquake and Perses backed farther away toward the veil where the Seventh Heaven met Earth.

  “They’ll all have to leave soon if they want to live,” Perses told Cameron. “I suggest you and Selena leave too.”

  “What about Prometheus?” Selena asked.

  “I’ll stay to make sure Perses isn’t ambushed and can get out of here,” Prometheus replied. “I’ll join you soon. I have a feeling Huitzilopochtli won’t keep you waiting long now.”

  Cameron nodded in agreement and grabbed Selena’s hand. “We should probably find the Stone of Fal then, because there’s still another god we have to kill, and Ailill isn’t stealing Hanna’s place as the Last Guardian of Tara.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  True to his word, Prometheus didn’t keep Cameron and Selena waiting long once they returned to the W Hotel in New Orleans. They’d just assured their friends that the Seventh Heaven was being destroyed when Prometheus knocked on the door and let himself in. Cameron caught Athena looking him over in a way that was far too approving, so this time, he couldn’t not say something.

  “Cut it out,” he warned her. “I expect a lot of changes in this supernatural life, but you taking an interest in someone is simply unacceptable.”

  “Cameron,” Selena hissed. “None of your business. And kinda assholish.”

  Athena snorted and smiled at him anyway. “Don’t worry, Sun God. I can admire the Sistine Chapel without being Catholic.”

  “This is getting kinda weird, isn’t it?” London agreed.

  Selena pulled a chair away from the table and propped her feet on the edge of the bed. On the table beside her lay the same newspaper with the statue of Andrew Jackson and the St. Louis Cathedral on the cover. She pulled it closer and tapped her fingers across the picture.

  “Please don’t tell me we have to desecrate a church now,” Cameron groaned.

  “No, I don’t think the Stone of Fal is beneath the Cathedral,” Selena said. “But Catch-22 gave you and London an idea about how to destroy Koschei’s vessel, and I’m guessing neither the book nor this newspaper are as random as we initially thought.”

  “Okay,” London said slowly. “Maybe it’s not the front page we’re supposed to be studying then?”

  Cameron glanced at the headline then shook his head. “Or maybe it is, and the whole point is that the Stone of Fal is here. Not necessarily in the Cathedral or part of Jackson’s pedestal, but somewhere in New Orleans and hidden in plain sight.”

  “Oh, so we only need to trudge through the entire city examining every rock we come across,” London retorted. “Good, because I thought this was going to be difficult.”

  “We do have one advantage,” Cameron argued, pointing to his girlfriend.

  “Me?” Selena exclaimed. “I don’t even know what it looks like!”

  “Hanna,” he clarified. “She’s the Stone of Fal’s heir, right? If you come across it, it should respond to her.”

  “This has got to be one of the dumbest ideas you’ve ever had,” Ares comp
lained.

  “Why do people always tell me that? My ideas work. Usually.”

  “What will this stone do?” Prometheus asked. “And why do we need it?”

  “It proclaims the rightful Guardian of Tara,” Badb said, announcing her return to the W Hotel’s room and, once again, scaring the shit out of Cameron by her sudden and unexpected appearance.

  He scowled and reminded her, “Bell.”

  “I thought you’d stay in Murias,” Selena said, ignoring Cameron’s insistence that all of their friends needed bells.

  “We’ll all go to the Otherworld if we need to,” she replied. “My sisters have stayed and all of our Egyptian friends are still there, as well as plenty of Greek and Irish fighters. It’s more important right now to find the Lia Fáil before Ailill does.”

  “Again,” Prometheus asked, “why? And what happens if someone else finds it first?”

  “Nothing unless that god happens to be a descendant of Nemed,” Badb explained. “Ailill was Selena’s father in another life, and he betrayed us all. If he finds the Lia Fáil before we do, it will grant him enormous power… and even Cameron may not be able to defeat him.”

  “I miss the days when all I had to worry about were the Olympians,” Prometheus sighed.

  Selena groaned and forced herself off the chair, and Cameron immediately put his arm around her. She smiled weakly at him and pointed to her feet. “I have, what, five more months to go? How can my feet hurt this badly already?”

  “If it gets worse, I’ll carry you,” he promised her.

  Selena laughed. “Yeah, because that won’t seem pathetic at all.”

  London flipped the newspaper open and turned the pages carefully, almost reverently. Cameron was about to suggest they just take the paper with them when she paused and glanced up at him. “I think I know where the Stone is.”

  Badb rushed to the table, her excitement over the possibility that they were minutes away from returning the last Treasure of the Gods to its home causing her to bump into Cameron in the process, but he stepped back and let the war goddess study the newspaper. “I don’t get it,” Badb said. “It’s just the opinion section.”