Days of Borrowed Pasts

by S. M. Schmitz

  “Ayla,” Thomas replied, “how could we possibly save them?”

  The door to the restaurant opened, and the waiter returned with a tray filled with hot drinks and baskets of buttered garlic bread. Ayla vaguely remembered she was supposed to be hungry, but she only felt cold and empty now, and the hope she’d clung to since finding out that reopening the veil could be possible was dimming. Please, Mother. If you can hear me, help us. Help me get home to you.

  “Ayla?” Thomas said. She glanced over at him and suspected it hadn’t been the first time he’d called her name. He gestured to the waiter and continued, “He’s asked if you’re ready to order.”

  “Oh,” Ayla breathed. She moved her menu from beneath her arm and tried to read the words on its page, but none of them made any sense to her. They were just black dots on a cream colored sheet of paper. “Whatever the special is.”

  “Do you want me to tell you what the special is?” the waiter asked, his pencil poised above his notepad.

  But Ayla shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not sure anything does.”

  “Uh…” Leon interjected. “She’s just… having an existential crisis. Three specials, please.”

  The waiter blinked at him then blinked back at Ayla. “Okay… three specials and one answer to the meaning of life.” He tapped his pencil against his notepad then turned on his heels and went back inside. Thomas gaped at the restaurant door for a few seconds then said, “Nietzsche is waiting tables now. Who knew?”

  Leon snorted and played along. “God is dead. At least some of them.”

  “Yeah,” Thomas retorted. “And you probably killed him.”

  “Hey,” Leon argued, “Nietzsche was obviously talking about a god who was killed long before I came along.”

  “Yeah, but —”

  “Oh, my God, would you both shut up about Nietzsche and dead gods?” Ayla hissed.

  “Sorry,” Leon and Thomas mumbled.

  Ayla fell back in her chair and closed her eyes, trying to conjure the memories of standing on a cliff overlooking the Irish Sea with the perfect juxtaposition of a cool breeze and warm sunshine wrapping around her, comforting her just like her mother’s own arms. The veil always opened there, especially on Samhain, and gods and mortals alike could easily pass into the Otherworld where the world of gods awaited them.

  Her father had spent most of his time on Earth, but her mother had divided her time between both worlds. Ayla had always loved the Otherworld with its unparalleled beauty and the mystical quality of everything that grew there, the seemingly magical animals that roamed its fields, the permanence and immutability of its landscapes. To her, the Otherworld offered comfort if for no other reason than it never changed, while the world of mortals always changed and each day was a token of the unexpected.

  “Ayla?” Thomas spoke her name quietly, affectionately. She opened her eyes, and he promised, “If we can rescue the lost gods, we will. And maybe once we cross the veil, the League won’t be able to follow us because we’ll be able to close the veil forever.”

  “Forever?” she scoffed. “They’re the ones who figured out a spell to close it in the first place. Eventually, they’ll come up with a spell to reopen it.”

  “Then we’ll be ready for them,” Thomas said. “What human would be so stupid to invade the Otherworld where gods have complete control?”

  Leon shook his head. “All of them, Thomas. Haven’t you learned yet that the League thinks it’s invincible? And it won’t stop hunting until every last god is dead.”

  Thomas and Leon grinned guiltily at Ayla as she opened her door, and the hunter thrust a red plastic cup at her. “Try this.”

  Ayla peeked inside it, smelled it, and shook her head. “It’s nine o’clock in the morning,” she scolded.

  Leon waved her off. “Morning drinking is totally acceptable in New Orleans.”

  Ayla shot an accusatory glance at Thomas, who held up his hands, insisting, “I don’t even drink. This was entirely his idea.”

  “Yeah, well, if we’re going to die, might as well enjoy our last hours on Earth, right?” Leon countered.

  “Nobody’s dying,” Ayla said. A door across the hall opened so she pulled them both inside and locked her own door behind them. She put her hands on her hips and tapped a foot while Leon sipped on his mystery drink, and Thomas grabbed the remote for the television. “This is how you plan for your survival?” she exclaimed. “By getting drunk and watching TV? No wonder you’re convinced we’re going to die.”

  “This was already hard enough when we were just avoiding the League,” Leon argued. “But now, your crazy uncle and the goddess who can extinguish the sun —”

  “She can’t extinguish the sun,” Ayla corrected.

  “Are after us, too,” Leon finished. “And who knows who else he’s told about us? Why exactly is your uncle trying to kill you anyway?”

  “I’m a lost god,” Ayla explained. “Who isn’t trying to kill me? I guess he heard about Chicago and has been following me —”

  “Thanks again for bringing her along, by the way,” Leon told Thomas.

  “Dude!” Thomas yelled, finally looking away from the television to glare at his friend. “And you’re welcome. I mean, saving her life and potentially opening the veil with her help… yeah, I’m such an asshole.”

  Leon blinked at him then shrugged and sipped on his drink again. “It’s not that I don’t like you, Ayla. You just have a lot of baggage. Extremely powerful, destructive baggage.”

  “We all do,” she countered. “If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be trying to escape this world.”

  Leon seemed to think about that for a few moments then shrugged again. “Okay, but your baggage scares the crap out of me. And I still can’t pronounce his name. Can I call him Kat instead?”

  “No,” Ayla said.

  Thomas grunted at him and rolled his eyes. “He’s only a war god, Leon. He’s hardly Odin.”

  Leon glanced between them, but when neither god explained what Thomas had meant by that, he prodded them along. “And if he were Odin, that would be worse because…”

  “I’m not actually sure,” Ayla admitted. “Never met him, but he’s not only a powerful war god, he’s also a sorcerer and extremely knowledgeable about everything. I can see how that would be worse.”

  “And because Odin is more powerful and is leading the gods against the hunters,” Thomas explained. “If he were after us, we could have an entire supernatural army chasing us, and there’s no escaping that. We’re talking about two Hittite gods here. We can fight back.”

  Leon groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. “Okay,” he reluctantly agreed. “But we’ll have to lead him somewhere uninhabited. Battles between gods always end in catastrophe for humans.”

  “Agreed,” Thomas and Ayla said at the same time.

  Leon tossed his empty cup into the trash and sighed. “I need another drink.”

  “You need to stop drinking,” Ayla warned. “Did you come up with a list of what you absolutely need?”

  Leon nodded and pulled a crumpled sheet of paper from his pocket. He unfolded it and smoothed it out and handed it to her, explaining why he’d chosen those weapons while she quickly read over it. “Obsidian daggers are common enough, and with the right spell, they become invincible.”

  Thomas interrupted him by holding up his arm with the three-inch scar and muttering, “Tell me about it.”

  Leon waved him off. “How many times do I have to tell you I’m sorry?”

  “A few more wouldn’t hurt,” Thomas joked.

  Ayla sighed loudly to get their attention and held up his list. “A 9mm? Is there a spell for that, too? What does it do?”

  “No spell,” Leon said. “It’s a pistol. It kills people.”

  “Smartass,” she mumbled.

  “And the ring,” Leon continued, although he smiled at her now. “It has to be a very specific kind of ring.”

  “Of course it does,” Thomas said.<
br />
  “Hey,” Leon snapped. “I had all of these weapons back home until you and your girlfriend showed up.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” Thomas protested. Ayla thought he might be protesting a little too loudly and crossed her arms while shooting him an, “And I won’t ever be now” look. He blushed and waved a hand irritably at Leon. “Sometimes he baits me.”

  “And is there something so wrong with me? You think you’re too good for me or something?”

  “No!” Thomas exclaimed, and his cheeks darkened even more. “I never said that!”

  “You kinda did,” Leon goaded.

  Thomas threw the remote at him, so Leon yelped and rubbed the side of his head where it had hit him. But Ayla had grown tired of their silly argument and attempted to redirect them to the ring. “It just says silver ring. What’s so special about that?”

  “Oh,” Leon said. “I must have left off a word. That’s supposed to be silver and rhodium, and rhodium plated won’t work.”

  “Rhodium,” Ayla repeated. “Isn’t that one of the rarest metals in the world?”

  “Um… that’s a definite possibility,” Leon answered.

  Ayla groaned and re-crumpled his list so she could throw it at him.

  “Would you two stop throwing stuff at me?” Leon complained.

  “What does it even do?” Thomas asked. “Give you the power to take over Middle Earth?”

  Leon squinted at him and said, “No… although, admittedly, that would be pretty awesome.”

  “Leon,” Ayla groaned.

  “It’s not the ring itself,” Leon said. “It’s the metals. A necklace or watch would work, too, but since both silver and rhodium are used in jewelry, that’s the easiest way for us to find it. And I wrote down ring, because the smaller the piece of jewelry, the cheaper it should be.”

  “Leon, what does it do?” Thomas shouted.

  Ayla shushed him while Leon scowled at him. “I’m getting to that. Ever wonder how hunters figure out you’re gods and not just humans minding your own business?”

  Ayla and Thomas exchanged uneasy glances and nodded. “Figured you just trailed us for a long time or took the risk you’d end up killing a human,” Thomas admitted. “I mean… you are savagely hunting us down and all.”

  “I’m no longer talking to you,” Leon told him then turned his back on him. “Ayla, the spell using silver and rhodium allows us to determine if someone is human or not.”

  “Wait,” Ayla interjected, “why do we need that? We’re not hunting anyone. It doesn’t matter if they’re gods or not.”

  “It matters to me,” Leon insisted. “Because I’m fairly confident most humans won’t try to kill me and most gods will.”

  Ayla glanced at Thomas again, who looked as uncertain as she felt. They’d both survived centuries without knowing what race someone belonged to, and assuming a person was their enemy simply because an enchanted object told them so seemed like an invitation to trouble for them all. And knowing he could only replace a handful of items from his lost arsenal, he’d chosen an amulet that would help him distinguish gods from humans rather than anything that could help them find the ingredients for reopening the veil.

  But Thomas took a deep breath and turned off the television then forced a smile in his friend’s direction. “Let’s see what we can find then.”

  As Leon stepped into the hall, Thomas grabbed Ayla’s hand and squeezed it quickly, a simple gesture of solidarity. Leon had the chance to kill both gods while they slept in the rented house outside of Nashville, but they’d obviously survived. But something wasn’t adding up here, and whatever he was really planning could result in a far worse fate than death.

  Chapter Eight

  In the solace of memories, I find a happier world, but it’s colored now with the knowledge of everything we claimed as ours yet never was. Our greatest sin is that we stole what never belonged to us, and our debt must be repaid.

  Leon rubbed the obsidian blade with a cloth dipped in peppermint oil and hummed to himself, a tune that sounded like a cross between “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” and “Wake Up Little Susie.” Ayla finally grew tired of trying to decide which song was stuck in his head and interrupted his humming. “Is this part of your spell?”

  Leon peeked up at her as he dipped the cloth into the peppermint oil again. “Is what?”

  “The humming,” Thomas answered for her. “You’re driving me crazy.”

  Leon snickered and went back to working on his obsidian blade. “I can sing if you’d prefer.”

  “No,” Ayla immediately answered. “In fact, don’t —” A loud noise in the hall interrupted her, and Leon rose from the bed, gripping his new dagger in one hand. Thomas hurried to her side as if he intended to protect her, which she appreciated, but no one knew yet what had caused the crash.

  “Should we just wait?” she whispered.

  “For what?” Thomas whispered back. “I could use the key now and get us all out of here.”

  “I’m just going to check if I can see anything through the peephole,” Leon told them quietly. Ayla gripped Thomas’s arm as the hunter crept toward the door, but before he could reach it, a loud thunk startled them all. It sounded like someone was trying to break into the room.

  “Okay, use the key,” Leon decided.

  Thomas dug it out of his pocket, but another thunk hit the door, and this time, it swung open. “Hurry!” Ayla screamed.

  But the familiar blond woman who’d been following her for months hurried into the room instead. And she hadn’t come alone. Ayla heard more feet shuffling into the room at the same time the woman raised the pistol in her hand, pointing it first at Leon since he’d been closer. He only held the obsidian blade, since the 9mm he’d purchased from a slightly inebriated man stumbling out of a bar on Chartres Street was in his duffel bag on the floor. Thomas pushed Ayla behind him, and the ceiling broke apart, falling on the woman who’d pointed her weapon at his friend.

  Thomas dragged Ayla to the wall where he slapped the key against the sheetrock, and a door shimmered into existence. But Leon didn’t follow them. As the blond woman pushed debris off her, Leon pulled one of her accomplices to his chest and placed the obsidian blade in front of the brunette’s throat. “Get out!” he yelled at the other hunters.

  One of them laughed and taunted him. “You won’t actually kill another human. You’re not a murderer, Leon.”

  Ayla narrowed her eyes at the hunter who’d spoken to Leon, because they were all murderers. They just killed gods and demigods… but it was clear in their minds that they didn’t consider the supernatural races equal to humans. Those deaths didn’t count anymore than hunting a deer or pheasant. This woman Ayla had never encountered, but who had most likely known Leon from his years in the League, tried to struggle against Leon’s hold around her, but he pressed the blade to her throat and a thin line of blood appeared by the edge of his blade.

  “Leon,” Ayla whispered. “Come on… the door is open. Just let her go.”

  She and Thomas stood in the doorway, but she didn’t bother looking over her shoulder to see where this portal would take them. She couldn’t look away from the woman whose life was literally in Leon’s hands.

  Leon slowly inched toward the door, and every time the hunters inched closer, he stopped, pressing the blade closer to her throat until her blood dripped down his hand. Thomas looked at her fellow hunters, the two men with dark hair and equally dark eyes and the blond woman who must be making Leon feel so desperate that he was hurting this hostage and begged them to leave. But they only backed away.

  And then Ayla realized this woman, whose name she would never learn, was disposable. Her life didn’t matter to the hunters or the League or to most gods who only saw her as a butcher, a monster who would kill their entire race without remorse. She mattered to no one in this room except the two gods who’d become lost, disowned from their own families, belonging to no one just like the hunters who believed they had a bigger and more i
mportant purpose in life than simply to live.

  She glanced up at Thomas, whose pale blue eyes remained fixed on the helpless hunter, a woman who would still kill them if she had the chance, and his fingers found her hand and he held it tightly. Neither of them needed to say this world had become so corrupted that death had lost its meaning. Leon took one more step toward the open door Thomas had created in the wall then with one swift motion, sliced into the woman’s neck and pushed her body to the floor as he jumped through the portal, knocking the horrified lost gods to an unfamiliar, cold ground before the door faded out of existence.

  As they tumbled to the ground, Thomas fell on top of Ayla, breaking his fall with one hand so that he wouldn’t crush her. Leon tripped over their tangled legs and cursed but caught a railing and steadied himself. A foghorn sounded nearby, and Thomas and Ayla slowly sat up and stared wide-eyed at the ocean in front of them. “Um… any idea which ocean this is?” she asked.

  “Ah… a cold one?” he answered.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Leon said. “It’s not like we have to travel by ship or anything to get back to New Orleans.”

  “First of all,” Thomas snapped, and Ayla noticed he was rubbing his wrist, which was beginning to swell, “why the hell would we go back to New Orleans when the League obviously knows we’re there? And secondly —”

  “Hold up,” Leon interrupted. “One question at a time. We have to go back because Ayla’s backpack is still in her room.”

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered. She frantically searched the ground where she sat as if it would magically appear, but Leon was right: she hadn’t expected to leave, so she’d left her backpack locked in her room where she thought it would be safe.

  “And secondly,” Thomas continued, “you just murdered that woman! We don’t do that!”

  “Hey,” Leon yelled back, “you think hunters will just let you walk away simply because you claim you don’t want to hurt anyone? I was one of them for ten years, Thomas. They don’t operate that way. And if you don’t get over your sanctimonious —”