“Fabulous,” Prometheus sighed. “I’m so glad we get to fight the Slavic devil too.”
“Well, we’ve encountered the Persian one a couple times, so why not?” Cameron retorted.
“Where are they?” Tyr asked.
“Um… I’m not sure you’re going to like my answer.”
“Oh God, they’re here, too, aren’t they?” Badb groaned.
“Don’t make me ask,” he told Badb.
“You,” she hissed. “Don’t make me specify when the god in question is so obvious.”
Cameron thought about that then acquiesced. “Deal. But we both know we’ll be operating on my definition of obvious.”
Badb rolled her eyes then exclaimed, “Is Chernobog here or not?”
“Not,” Cameron explained. “If he were, you’d be able to sense him. With Koschei dead, nothing’s interfering with our abilities anymore.”
“Wait,” Athena said. “Does that mean he’s in the Otherworld?”
Cameron glanced at Badb again before nodding. “Yeah, but Nemain and Macha stayed behind to defend Murias with the help of the Egyptians, most of the Norse are in Falias, there’s an entire Greek army minus two gods that can defend Gorias, and even Chernobog wouldn’t be stupid enough to venture near Findias. Every spirit there would descend on him, and he can’t harm them in their own world.”
Badb shook her head quickly and grabbed his arm. “Let’s go to Murias just to make sure our home and family are all right. We’ll come back and deal with Huitzilopochtli when the Otherworld is safe.”
“The Otherworld is safe,” Cameron argued. “Have some faith in your family and allies.”
“Cameron,” Badb protested, but he cut her off and said, “Besides, whatever Huitzilopochtli is up to probably involves fire and brimstone and shit like that, so I’m dragging him to this part of the forest and we’re ending this now.”
“How…?” a silvery, slippery voice asked, which still sent shivers down Cameron’s spine. He gripped his Spear as he faced the Aztec god who’d triggered the end of the world, the god who thought he could steal his home.
“It’s kind of like hide and seek, isn’t it?” Cameron answered. “Normally, the room gods are playing in gives them nowhere to hide. It’s just this big empty room. But you figured out how to haul all these furnishings in so you could hide behind the curtains or under the table or behind the entertainment center. Once I figured out what you were doing, I just cleared all that stuff out, and there you were.”
Huitzilopochtli narrowed his eyes at the young sun god, his fingers curling so tightly around his atlatl that his knuckles blanched.
But Cameron didn’t give him the chance to speak either. He glanced at Enlil and called out to him, “You’d better not have more giant, multi-headed snakes.”
“Or what?” Enlil scoffed. “You’ll kill me?”
“He has a point,” Thor said. “You’re going to kill him either way.”
“Dude,” Cameron whispered, “whose side are you on?”
“Oh, believe me, I don’t want to fight giant, multi-headed snakes either,” Thor assured him. “Just pointing out that you can’t really give someone an ultimatum when the outcome won’t change regardless of their actions.”
Cameron blinked at his giant friend who just grinned and shrugged at him.
Meanwhile, Huitzilopochtli and his allies impatiently shifted their weight between feet, probably wondering, as most gods seemed to, how this group of gods—and Cameron in particular—could be so powerful. Cameron also suspected most gods assumed they were extremely lucky, which was the only reason they’d found the Treasures of the Gods.
A ruffling, fluttering among the mostly barren trees snapped his attention back to Huitzilopochtli, and he sighed and complained, “Come on, not the kamikaze hummingbirds again.”
Huitzilopochtli’s eyebrows pulled together and he asked, “The… what?”
“Don’t answer that,” Badb warned. “Just get rid of the birds.”
“I think I can do something about the birds,” Prometheus offered. He glanced toward the sound of those thousands of tiny fluttering wings, and a strong gusty wind pushed back against the trees where the hummingbirds had almost reached the clearing.
“You’re a weather god?” Cameron asked him, because that was clearly the most important thing to discuss right now.
But Prometheus shook his head and said, “No, not really. But there isn’t a lot to do in Tartarus, so I picked up a few tricks.”
Cameron nodded approvingly as the small green and red birds flapped their wings harder to fly against the wind Prometheus kept pushing at them. “If they won’t leave, just keep them there. They’ll take off as soon as Huitzilopochtli is dead.” To Thor, he smiled, clapped his shoulder, and said, “If a giant snake shows up, it’s all yours.”
“Does he ever shut up?” Enlil asked.
“No,” Huitzilopochtli answered. “I can only assume Fate has a terrifyingly warped sense of humor.”
“Personally,” Cameron replied even though no one had expected or even wanted his response, “I like to think she finds me funny and charming in a sometimes bumbling, mostly endearing kind of way. You know, like Arthur Dent without the towel.”
“And space travel,” Selena added.
“Please stop,” Badb begged.
Huitzilopochtli shouted a command in Nahautl, and his carbon copy gods tried to disappear. Cameron could feel them pulling and tugging against his mind, but he wouldn’t let them go. He watched Huitzilopochtli’s reaction carefully and checked on Chernobog one last time. He could no longer sense him at all, which meant the Slavic devil must be dead.
“Okay,” Cameron told his friends. “Time for you to go.” He sent them all back to the Otherworld, even Selena, and even Prometheus whose mastery of the wind had been keeping the hummingbirds far beyond the edge of trees.
Huitzilopochtli lifted an eyebrow at the young sun god. “Suicidal or do you naively think you have some sort of trick that will get you out of here alive?”
“No trick,” Cameron assured him. “I’ve already seen how a traditional battle would play out here, which of my friends would be badly injured, my desperate hope Selena could save them both. I’m not willing to take that risk. We’ve spent millennia living by these rules of warfare that are supposed to protect innocent bystanders and not annihilate entire pantheons. And I’ll honor them as long as the gods I fight remain committed to them as well. But you’ve broken every rule Athena worked so hard to create for us, and I owe you nothing.”
“So it’s a death wish then,” Huitzilopochtli said.
“It’s an ‘I’m exhausted and ready to go home to all my friends and family’ thing,” Cameron clarified.
The new Xolotl laughed and waved his fellow warriors on. In this final showdown, they planned to attack together, although Huitzilopochtli stayed at the rear, caring only about retrieving the sun god’s heart while it was still beating.
But Cameron had no intention of allowing them to get that close. A massive dome of fire erupted above them just as the hummingbirds reached the clearing. The crackling and sizzling of the Aztec warriors’ winged bodies as they dove into the fire prompted Cameron to exclaim, “See? Kamikaze hummingbirds!”
Apparently, Huitzilopochtli still didn’t think he was funny.
Cameron’s fire dripped from the canopy above them, creating a blanket of flames beneath the gods’ feet. They tried to back up, but they were surrounded by walls of fire, and Cameron refused to let them leave. They beat at his hold over them, pummeling and kicking and screaming, but his grasp never slipped.
Only Huitzilopochtli didn’t panic, because fire couldn’t kill him. He lifted his atlatl, loaded with a long thin spear, and with one swift, precise movement, propelled the spear toward Cameron’s head, careful to avoid potentially damaging the young god’s heart. True to Huitzilopochtli’s legend, the spear burst into flames on its trajectory toward Cameron. For a brief moment, he had a sen
se of déjà vu, because he’d fought this fight before with a different Aztec god and won, but it had almost cost Badb her life.
Cameron swung his Spear at the flaming projectile that had nearly reached his face and knocked it to the ground. Huitzilopochtli’s burning spear blended into the fire that thickly carpeted the forest floor beneath the dome. Some of the gods had dropped their weapons and were beating desperately at their legs, and whenever fire dripped from the ceiling, their arms and heads.
Just as he’d once done with Odin, Cameron wouldn’t leave his dome of fire until he was certain Huitzilopochtli was dead, which meant the other gods were simply annoyances, screaming and cursing in their death throes. But Huitzilopochtli still managed to keep the fire away from him. He’d already placed another spear into the atlatl and lifted it when Cameron threw his Spear at the Aztec god of war.
Perhaps Fate had whispered truths in his ear, too, because somehow, he’d known he could only kill Huitzilopochtli one way: He had to pierce his heart.
Huitzilopochtli waved his atlatl wildly to knock down Cameron’s Spear, just as the sun god had done moments before. But Huitzilopochtli, even with all of his stolen power, couldn’t rival Cameron’s speed. The Spear sank deep into his chest, and a strange gurgling leaked from his lips. The Aztec god took one step back then fell into the flames, which Cameron forced to collapse onto the god of war’s body.
As the cold damp air surrounded him once again, he immediately realized he was alone in this part of the Atchafalaya Basin. Even the spirits of the Aztec warriors had disappeared.
And Huitzilopochtli, the god who had wanted to rule one world by destroying another, was dead.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Selena was waiting in the Dagda’s great hall by the tapestry of the Stone of Fal, tracing the pattern of their daughter’s symbol that Lugh had woven into the base of the stone so many centuries before. She sensed his arrival as soon as he entered, but didn’t turn to look at him.
“Why did you do that? Why did you send us away then prevent us from returning?” she asked, her attention still fixed on the tapestry in front of her.
“Because I had a premonition,” Cameron explained. “I saw the whole battle play out. I watched Thor get eviscerated and London speared through the heart. And while you brought Badb back from the dead, I wasn’t willing to risk losing them.”
Selena finally looked away from the tapestry and shot him a sharp look. “But you forced me away! We’re supposed to do everything together, and you could have died!”
Cameron sighed and took her hand, not entirely sure if she’d let him hold her hand or pull away from him and insist he’d been careless and stupid and arrogant to take on Huitzilopochtli’s army alone. “Selena, I knew I’d be all right. Because in that same premonition, I had this whisper in my mind that told me how to kill Huitzilopochtli, and if I sent all of you away to protect you, we’d all survive this. I did what Fate asked of me.”
Selena blinked back tears and bit her lower lip, which had begun to quiver, and Cameron pulled her closer, holding her tightly as he silently assured her that he’d never leave her. Badb cleared her throat as she entered the hall and lifted an eyebrow at him as if to ask the same thing—“What the hell happened over there?” So he ran through his explanation again, and Badb nodded along.
“And you’re certain he’s dead?” she asked when he finished. “You saw what was left of his body?”
“Yeah, nothing left but ash. And as far as Enlil, Veles, and Tarhunt are concerned, we just have to hope the New Pantheon finds those vessels and can destroy them. If not, their alliance is definitely shattered without Huitzilopochtli, so even if their souls find new bodies, I doubt they’ll be that big of a threat.”
“You still haven’t learned,” Thor sighed, dragging Loki behind him as he also entered the Dagda’s hall. “Don’t ever say stuff like that. It never ends well for us.”
“Huitzilopochtli’s death isn’t going to stop Ragnarok,” Cameron said. “We need to get Loki in a cave and hope fulfilling the terms of his enchantment will stop the Earth’s destruction.”
Loki lifted his chin in the air in that defiant way of his and replied, “As far as I know, I’m the only god important enough that the end of the world rests solely on my freedom.”
“Can I smite him yet?” London asked.
Cameron shook his head. “No, but I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. Truthfully, I think he is certifiably crazy. Nothing will change that he’s dangerous and has killed innocent people, so we need to ensure he’s permanently kept away from others. But I’m hoping Fate will allow us to bend the definition of ‘binding.’”
Thor scratched his chin then looked Loki over quickly. “He doesn’t deserve anything less than the punishment we’ve already dealt him.”
“I don’t want us to be the kind of gods who would let someone suffer for thousands of years,” Cameron argued. “It may have been out of self-interest, but he did help us in New Orleans and we have the Stone of Fal back because of it.”
“What exactly are you suggesting then?” Badb asked.
Cameron pulled out his phone and held it up for the other gods to see, suggesting they could do their own research if they didn’t believe him. “I’ve been reading about the natural disasters and earthquakes all over the world. One hit south China where there’s a massive cave system. I mean, this thing is so huge it has its own weather system. The recent earthquake sealed off one of the caves, but even before that, it was too dangerous for people to get in. Take him here,” Cameron paused to hand Thor his phone, which had the web page of the cave’s location on it, “but don’t physically bind him. Cast the enchantment so that he’s bound to the cave and can’t leave it and allow him to roam the caverns.”
Thor scanned the screen on Cameron’s phone and shook his head slowly. “I don’t know about this. We have one shot at ending Ragnarok. What if he escapes? What if—”
But Loki himself finally spoke. “Bind me as Cameron has instructed and you have my word I won’t attempt to escape.”
“Your word?” Thor scoffed, but Selena quickly added, “You once told us you wanted to be a part of the new world we’re creating, that you admired our vision. This is part of how a just and compassionate world works, Thor. He’ll be kept away from gods and mortals so he can never hurt anyone again, but he won’t be tortured for eternity. The whole idea is that we create something better than we’ve had before. And this is how we start.”
Thor sighed again and scratched the back of his head as he thought about their proposal to change Loki’s binding from a physical one to a largely metaphorical one. He glanced at Cameron and asked, “And you’re sure Fate will allow this? That it’ll fulfill our obligation from the original enchantment?”
“I don’t think Fate would have worked so hard to bring Selena and me together if she didn’t want us to change both worlds,” Cameron answered. “Selena and I are the new Guardians of this one, and Hanna will one day take her place as the Last Guardian of Tara. I’m asking you to have faith in all of us.”
Thor slowly smiled and let his hand fall by his side. “My young friend, if there’s one thing I can promise you, it’s that you’ve both earned my complete faith. I’ll do as you’ve asked, and I’ll follow the Guardians of both worlds with a clear conscious. And I can’t wait to find out what our future brings.”
THE IRISH AND their oldest friends, the Greek and Egyptian gods, as well as some of their newest allies among the Norse, waited at the Dagda’s table for Athena to return from Earth with news about natural disasters, or, as they hoped, news that no more catastrophic disasters were occurring. Three days had passed since Thor had bound Loki in an enormous cave that was part of the Wulong Karst geological system, and as he’d promised, the enchantment allowed Loki the freedom to roam the cave but not leave it.
Athena had offered to stay on Earth for a few days to monitor the news, so they could gauge if the events of Ragnarok would end now or if the
Earth was still damned. They expected her return soon, and everyone had gathered in the Dagda’s great hall to hear her report. Dionysus had refilled wine glasses at least four times, but Cameron still didn’t drink so he just pushed his water around on the table, waiting impatiently for Athena to arrive while his friends animatedly replayed their recent adventures or made yet another toast to the Lia Fáil’s safe return home.
But Cameron’s mind was already on the tasks he’d yet to complete. Once he knew Ragnarok wouldn’t destroy the Earth, he’d send his parents back to Baton Rouge as they’d asked. He’d offered to bring Tara back to Georgia, but she’d decided not to leave the Otherworld. With Selena living in Murias and her sister in Findias, she would divide her time between the two cities of the Tuatha Dé where her family now lived.
In the three days since Cameron had been back, his father had sought him out often, making small talk about fishing and asking him if he were still planning on their trip in the spring… assuming, of course, the world didn’t end. Cameron assured him he was, and that he’d even let Logan tag along, although they both knew he couldn’t fish worth a damn. Neither mentioned his father’s anger over discovering his son had become a god, and Cameron suspected neither would ever mention it again. Some things didn’t need to be said, and the more they talked about LSU football or Hanna’s arrival, the more confident Cameron felt that nothing would really change.
And then there was Aonghus whom he’d entrusted with two irreplaceable, enchanted rings. He’d come to Cameron in one of the rare moments Selena had gone to Findias alone and pressed the small box in his hands, giving him a pointed look that Cameron interpreted as, “Don’t make us wait too long.”
He had no intention of making anyone wait too long, but he’d only told one person.
Aonghus watched him carefully now, because his foster son knew what Cameron intended to do as soon as they learned Earth was safe, and the Irish god of love had waited a long time to see his foster father reunited with the only goddess he’d ever loved.
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