“She might be able to help us,” Thomas whispered. “Let’s just hear her out.”
“I don’t think she’s here to help us,” Ayla said, not bothering to whisper. “And Leon and I will go through all the danger of reopening the veil just to get tricked and left behind.”
“Whoa,” Leon interjected. “Why am I getting left behind?”
Ayla gestured toward Aphrodite who arched an eyebrow at her. “Your little friend gets jealous so easily,” Aphrodite said. “I don’t care if you’re —”
“DeeDee,” Thomas interrupted. “If you want to stay, you’ll have to contribute something.”
“I don’t believe you’ve forgotten exactly what I can contribute,” she told him.
“Oh, my God,” Thomas mumbled. Ayla glanced at him and thought he might be blushing now, too. “I certainly remember why I broke up with you,” he added.
Aphrodite laughed and touched the torc around her neck. “Brísingamen, a gift from Freyja. It allows me to go unnoticed. It’s like a cloak of invisibility. Even the League hasn’t been able to develop a spell that wards against it. Still think I have nothing to contribute?”
“Why would Freyja part with such an invaluable necklace?” Ayla asked.
“She was injured recently and is recuperating,” Aphrodite answered. “She loaned it to me until she needs it back.”
That didn’t sound like Freyja at all. She would’ve never parted with her most prized possession. But neither Thomas nor Leon appeared willing to call her out on a potential lie, so Ayla decided to keep her suspicions to herself. After all, Aphrodite had probably cast her own spell over the two men in the room, and Ayla might never convince them to see the Greek goddess as anything but seductive and desirable.
Thomas glanced at Ayla and shrugged. “Invisibility could come in handy considering we can’t go back to Tonnerre or Sassari, and that’s almost certainly the only two places on Earth we’ll get Cry violets and those damn rabbit things.”
Aphrodite blinked at him and asked, “The what?”
“She has Freyja’s magical necklace, so I want my magical ring,” Leon said.
“I can’t imagine why I always have a headache lately,” Ayla sighed.
Thomas nodded conspiratorially. “They both tend to have that effect on people.”
“Hey!” they both objected.
“And you don’t need that ring,” Thomas said. “It’s not a huge priority when we’re back to square one, and the hunters always seem to be only one step behind us now.”
“What does this ring do?” Aphrodite asked. “Maybe I have something you can borrow.”
“Doubt it,” Leon responded. “It’s a League spell that allows us to tell if someone is a god.”
“A League spell,” she breathed, her eyes narrowing at Leon before she pulled on Thomas’s arm, yanking him to his feet. “A hunter?” she screamed. “You brought a hunter into our midst?”
“Former hunter,” Leon clarified.
“And ow,” Thomas added. “DeeDee, let go of my arm. Leon is trying to cross the veil, too, because the punishment for leaving the League is death.”
“He’s a hunter,” she sneered. “And you’ve just forgiven him for murdering how many gods?”
“And how many humans have you killed?” Leon asked Aphrodite.
“Apparently, not enough,” she snapped.
“That’s it,” Ayla shouted. “Out! Let me talk to Thomas alone.”
Leon just shrugged, but Aphrodite looked her over again as if measuring her competition for Thomas’s affection and deciding she was hardly worth worrying about. “All right,” Aphrodite announced, her voice silky and sultry again, “I’ll be waiting in your room, Thomas.”
“No —” he started, but the goddess swept out of Ayla’s room and seconds later, the door to Thomas’s room closed. “I need to get a new room,” he muttered.
“Why? She’ll apparently just follow you there, too.”
Thomas snorted and ran his fingers through his golden brown hair. “Sorry about her. For what it’s worth, she’s not dangerous… just annoying.”
“And I’m supposed to trust her because you used to date her? Aphrodite? Really?”
“Eh,” Thomas teased, lifting a shoulder and smiling at her. “She’s Greek. I’m half-Greek. It was convenient.”
Ayla wrinkled her nose and asked, “Isn’t she like… your great-aunt or something?”
Thomas wrinkled his nose, too. “Ew, no. Homer got it wrong. Hesiod was sort of right. Uranus is her father, but she wasn’t born from the sea. Obviously.”
“She’s obviously still in love with you,” Ayla said.
“So?”
Ayla busied herself by laying her new and old notebooks on the desk and opening pages, hoping Thomas would forget her awkward announcement, because she didn’t have a good reason for caring about Aphrodite’s affections. “You’re just asking me to trust a lot of strangers, people you have a connection with but who have no reason to risk their lives for me. And I could end up standing at the veil and having it slammed closed in my face, because I was stupid enough to let this get out of hand.”
“You don’t really know me either,” Thomas pointed out. “I’ve chosen to place a lot of faith in you, Ayla. I was hoping you’d do the same for me.”
“I’m here,” she said. “I obviously did. But Leon and Aphrodite? And how many more hunters and gods will we add to our group?”
“I didn’t exactly invite Aphrodite along,” Thomas insisted. “But now that she’s here, we may be able to get this to work to our advantage.” He paused and glanced at the item in his hand, a strange little box with a lever on one side, but no matter how many times it turned, the box never opened. “I think it’s broken.”
Ayla snatched it out of his hand and shoved it into her backpack. “It’s never worked.”
“Then why do you keep it? You’re kind of a pack rat.”
Ayla rolled her eyes and shot back, “I keep everything my mother ever gave me. Would you throw out a gift from your parents?”
“Why did your mom give you a broken box?”
Ayla shrugged. “It belonged to her for a long time. Her mother gave it to her when she was a child.”
“And she never told you what’s inside?”
“It’s probably empty… I mean, it’s thousands of years old. Can we just —”
A sharp crackle of electricity and the deafening snap of lightning outside her window made both of the gods jump. The sky opened and a torrential rain suddenly pounded against the glass panes, the winds shaking the shutters. Tree branches broke off the tall oak beside the bed and breakfast and lashed the side of the house, and voices filled the hallway as Leon and Aphrodite hurried back to Ayla’s room, panicked by the hurricane that had somehow found its way to a small town in Iowa.
“We have to get out of here,” Aphrodite shouted. “Don’t you know who’s outside?”
“No,” Thomas admitted. “How do you?”
“Because I saw him!” she screamed. “I don’t know how, but Odin has found us. And if he’s outside, he’s brought his entire army as well.”
Chapter Ten
A storm rages inside me, its power frightening and deadly. When it passes, what devastation will be left behind? And will I recognize the world that remains?
Aphrodite paused by the backdoor, listening to the wind and rain pelting the porch. She glanced over her shoulder and said, “We have to take our chances. If we stay inside, he’ll bring the entire house down on us.”
“Melanie,” Ayla cried. “We can’t just leave her here!”
“Basement,” Thomas decided. “The door’s probably in the kitchen. From there, I’ll just open a portal and get us out of Larken.”
Footsteps pounded on the stairs above them, and Melanie’s freckled face peered over the banister. “Oh, my God,” she exclaimed, and Ayla thought, “Yeah… if you only knew.”
Melanie said, “I’ve been looking for you! We need to ge
t into the basement.”
Leon had already grabbed Aphrodite’s arm and was pulling her back toward the kitchen when the front of the house exploded, sending wooden shrapnel and glass shards flying through the air. Fragments of insulation swirled as if trapped in tiny tornadoes, and Thomas covered Ayla with his body as more debris swept inside and hurled toward them. Melanie screamed as the entryway to the kitchen collapsed, and the ceiling began to fall on them.
“Out the back,” Thomas yelled.
They shuffled into the blinding rain that stung Ayla’s skin, and moments later, the roof of the charming bed and breakfast, the only overnight accommodations in Larken, Iowa, collapsed. As the gods and two mortals stumbled onto the lawn, Ayla glimpsed a figure approaching them but the world had grown dark and the rain was thick. She had no idea if it was Odin or another god in his supernatural army, the same group that was supposed to be fighting hunters, not tracking down a couple of lost gods who only wanted to live, but given the intensity of the storm, she was almost certain Thor was among this group as well.
Aphrodite spun around, motioning toward the front lawn, and grabbed Ayla’s arm. “I really hope the gods are right about you lost kids,” she yelled over the storm. “Or we’re all about to die!”
Ayla followed her gaze and even in the dark rain, she could make out Odin’s weathered face and long beard, inexplicably dry despite the downpour. His single eye seemed to glow with an unnatural fury as he stalked toward them, and Ayla’s heart leapt into her throat. She couldn’t scream or cry, and her legs seemed paralyzed. She’d never known fear like this.
“Ayla,” Thomas called, “Take care of the gods behind us. I’ll handle Odin.”
She wanted to scream back, “How?” but he was already moving, disappearing into the blackness that had surrounded them. To her right, Aphrodite disappeared, her borrowed enchanted necklace offering her an escape but leaving Ayla with the two mortals she wanted to protect. But she couldn’t even protect herself.
Leon had produced his pistol and fired into the sheets of water that continued to crash into them like waves from the ocean. The dark figure that she’d first seen marching toward them slowed, but Leon had either missed or the god had some magical ability to heal gunshot wounds because he resumed his pace. Leon fired again, and again, the figure slowed then quickened his steps.
“What the hell is going on?” Melanie shouted. “Are these really gods?”
Ayla’s guilt about dragging this poor woman into their supernatural battle was quickly interrupted by bolts of lightning splintering through the rain, burning holes into the grass all around them. Behind her, more gunshots cracked through the ear-splitting thunder and constant drumming of the rain. Melanie grabbed Ayla’s hand and shouted over the noise. “Should we run?”
“We can’t,” Ayla told her. “We’re surrounded.”
“Standing here isn’t exactly a good option either,” Leon snapped.
Ayla agreed with him, but what else could they do? The dark figure that Leon had fired toward finally stopped and raised his arm. She could see the pistol in his hand now. Before he could squeeze the trigger, the gun suddenly fell to the ground then skidded across the puddles on the lawn. Ayla gasped and blinked the water out of her eyes then realized Aphrodite must have knocked the weapon out of the god’s hand.
A low, angry growl rose above the clamor of the storm. The unnatural sound, some terrifying cross between a wolf and a bear, caused goose bumps to erupt on Ayla’s arms. Melanie squeezed her hand and whimpered, “Oh, my God. What is that?”
But Ayla had no idea — the hulking, massive shape creeping toward them was as unrecognizable as the sound it made. “Leon?” Ayla said nervously.
“Uh… I hunted gods, not freaks of nature.”
The grotesque animal apparently didn’t appreciate being called a freak of nature, because it growled at them again. Leon shot at it, but just as with the god, the bullet didn’t seem to hit its target. Or if it did, it had no effect on the giant hybrid. Another bolt of lightning singed the grass in front of her and momentarily blinded her. As she tried to refocus on the monster, it lunged toward them, its long, curved claws digging into Leon’s shirt.
Ayla pulled her hand out of Melanie’s grasp and threw herself at the beast on top of the hunter. Its coarse, bristly fur scratched her bare skin and the muscles in its back contracted as it turned its hideous snout toward her. Even through the rain, she could smell its rotten breath, like old meat in a furnace, and see its eyes, reptilian and filled with loathing. She shivered but if she didn’t get this monster off Leon, he’d die a gruesome death.
“Get off,” she shouted.
The ugly beast opened its mouth in response, its hot, acrid breath making her stomach turn. If she’d eaten recently, she would have thrown everything up. “Ayla,” Leon croaked, “behind you.”
Ayla glanced over her shoulder and saw the god reaching for Leon’s gun, which he’d dropped when the beast attacked him. Melanie obviously noticed, too, because she dove toward it at the same time. Before she could see who’d get to the weapon first, the monster snapped at her, but she was just out of its reach, which only pissed it off more.
Aphrodite’s voice was suddenly in her ear even though she remained hidden from sight. “Thomas has distracted Odin, but there are four other gods here. Sacrifice this human, and let’s go.”
“No,” Ayla insisted. “Get Melanie out of here. I’m staying.”
Aphrodite grunted in response, and Ayla thought the Greek goddess was going to ignore her request. But Melanie unexpectedly rose from the ground, the pistol in her hand, and ran, looking bewildered and terrified. Leon cried out in pain as the creature returned its attention to the man it had pinned on the ground. Ayla had never used her power over the elements to kill anything, but if she didn’t do something, Leon would die. She closed her eyes and offered her mother a quick, silent prayer. “Please, help me save this man. Keep my fire from touching him.”
The smell of burning fur followed by roasting flesh replaced the noxious odor of the monster’s breath. It howled and bucked and knocked Ayla to the ground, but it kept Leon pinned down. She needed a bigger fire.
Flames leapt from the beast’s body as the god who’d attempted to recover Leon’s weapon yelled at her. She recognized his language. He was speaking Norse. Perhaps all of the gods who’d found them in Larken belonged to Odin’s pantheon.
The monster writhed and growled, that low, throaty warning mixing now with a pained, angry moaning. Ayla’s fire crept down its legs and the creature finally pulled its forelimbs off the former hunter. She hurriedly grabbed Leon’s bloody arm and pulled him away from the deformed animal that had tried to kill him. As the rain continued to fall, Ayla concentrated on keeping her fire burning. No amount of water would douse these flames. The god screamed at her again, and this time, she picked out enough words to understand his threat. “I’ll destroy everything you love!”
Ayla scoffed. Everything she loved had already been either destroyed or locked away. She helped Leon to his feet, and as he draped a wounded arm over her shoulders so she could help him walk, Thomas appeared at his other side, startling them both. “Um, I think I only really managed to piss off Odin even more. We should probably get out of Larken now.”
“You think?” Ayla retorted.
Leon moaned but still added, “Do you ever do anything besides piss off powerful gods?”
Thomas ignored him. “Ayla, they’ve surrounded us. For some reason, they don’t seem to want to kill us yet. I think they want the mortals dead and us captured.”
“I’d rather die,” Ayla said.
“I think I can get us out of this,” Thomas continued. “But that wolf you just killed —”
“Wolf?” Ayla shrieked. “That monster was a wolf?”
“Just be prepared to run,” Thomas said. “I’ll open a door.”
“Leon can’t run,” Ayla pointed out.
“I’ll get him there,” Thomas assured
her.
Snarling interrupted their conversation, and Ayla turned in a slow circle trying to find its source. It took a few moments before she realized the snarling wasn’t coming from one animal but two, a synchronous sound of death. Two more wolves with large bodies had appeared, their backs bent in their anger, growling and baring their teeth at the gods and human attempting to escape. Just like the creature that attacked Leon, these wolves weren’t animals of the mortal world, and their size and speed and ferocity was unlike anything Ayla had ever seen.
All around them, gods began to shout in different languages.
“Geri and Freki,” Thomas exclaimed. “Odin’s wolves. We have to run… now!” He already had the key in his hand. “It’s only seventy-eight feet to the fence.”
“Did you seriously just calculate that?” Ayla asked.
“Priorities,” Thomas hissed. “Just run.”
Ayla nodded even though she’d never been more sure she’d mess up. She tugged on the strap of her backpack and part of her thought, I’ll never salvage my notebook now, but she forced her brain to concentrate on Thomas and the fence and running. She wouldn’t even allow herself to think about Thomas’s pronouncement that Odin’s army had apparently not come to kill the lost gods.
Ayla ran.
The gray shape of the fence bobbed in front of her as lightning bolts began to pierce the ground all around her and the angry, throaty growls of the wolves crept closer and closer to her heels. The winds picked up and slammed into her like a tidal wave, but she refused to stop running. She could hear Thomas and Leon right behind her, the mortal groaning in pain as he attempted to keep pace with his friend. Ayla reached the fence first, and the winds changed directions, gusting so hard the fence creaked then fell over.
Thomas cursed and dragged Leon onto the collapsed boards, touching the key to the wood. A door shimmered into existence, and Thomas called out, “We’ve got to jump in now, but Leon will need help. Grab his other arm.”
Days of Borrowed Pasts Page 8
