Days of Borrowed Pasts
Page 14
Thomas pushed her toward the back door, shouting at her to run, but for the first time in her life, she didn’t want to run. She wanted to fight.
A fire erupted around the woman, but the flames couldn’t touch her. “A defense spell,” Thomas muttered. “Man, I hope Loki burns in Hell one day for teaching humans magic.”
While Ayla’s flames couldn’t consume the hunter, they were devouring Dionysus’s farmhouse, and frighteningly fast, too.
Ayla thought she glimpsed the hunter raising her pistol to fire at her, and a shot rang out. She screamed, but Thomas pulled on her arm and yelled, “Come on! We have to get out of here before the whole place goes up in flames.”
She noticed Ma’at clutching her backpack and Aphrodite holding the leather-bound book from Tonnerre. They must’ve run into the kitchen to save them in the confusion. She wasn’t quite sure how the hunter’s aim had been so off as to miss her completely — the League’s hunters were notoriously well trained in tracking and killing gods and demigods — but when she saw Dionysus jumping from his back porch, his shot gun in one hand as he joined the two goddesses waiting in the backyard, she understood how she was still alive.
Dionysus had saved her life by shooting the hunter first. And while one problem she’d been contending with for months seemed solved, it had only created a thousand more.
Thomas and Ayla tumbled from the burning house, coughing and gasping for air, but their victory was short-lived. The hunter’s partner, the tall man in the trench coat, rounded the corner from the front yard and began firing at them.
Ayla dove toward the ground, but again, the bullets never touched her. Impossibly, the lush, plump stalks of corn had turned into Jack-and-the-Beanstalk level vegetation and fell all around them, creating an impenetrable fort of Olympic-grade corn.
Ayla blinked at the green wall in front of her and would’ve laughed if the hunter weren’t still so close, just trying to figure out how to get past the mammoth stalks.
“How did you…?” she stammered, but Dionysus helped her to her feet and brushed her off — both literally and figuratively.
Thomas shrugged and offered, “Nothing humans ever made can be faster than a god’s primary power, including the propulsion of bullets from a firearm.”
“Unfortunately,” Dionysus said, “I’m pretty sure I didn’t crush that guy. I am sure, though, that I killed his partner, so you might want to open a door and get us out of here, Thomas. Wouldn’t surprise me if that guy had some spell up his sleeve to get him through our corn fort.”
Thomas snickered and agreed. “Okay. Where to?”
And Dionysus flashed his own impish grin as he answered, “Where else? The Land of Monsters.”
END BOOK ONE
Continue Ayla and Thomas’s adventure in Night Without Stars, book two of The Lost Gods series
Mythology Glossary
Aphrodite — Greek goddess of love, beauty, sexuality, and procreation
Ares — Greek god of war
Arinniti — Hittite sun goddess
Brísingamen — the necklace of the Norse goddess, Freyja. While it is one of her most prized possessions, there’s no evidence the necklace granted her the power of invisibility (I made that up for this story).
Cyllene — Greek mountain associated with Hermes. While the Key of Cyllene is made up for this story, the mountain itself (and its association with Hermes) is real.
Dionysus — Greek god of wine, grapes, fertility, and theater
Eros — Greek god of love and sexual desire. In some myths, he is the son of Ares and Aphrodite (and, yes, they’re brother and sister…there are a lot of incestuous relationships in mythology). In this series, Ares and Aphrodite have no romantic history and Eros is mentioned in passing only.
Fenrir — in Norse myth, he is a son of Loki and is a monstrous wolf that terrorizes the gods and breaks free from all of his bindings until the dwarves make a special binding to hold him. Fenrir only agrees to let the gods place these bindings on him if someone will place their hand in his mouth. Tyr offers to risk it so Fenrir can be bound; not surprisingly, the wolf bites off Tyr’s hand but the gods are able to restrain him. In this story, Fenrir is simply an otherworldly monster — I don’t touch the whole freakish offspring of a god thing.
Freyja — Norse goddess of love, sex, fertility, war, and sorcery
Geri and Freki — Odin’s wolves who often accompany the Norse god
Hapi — Egyptian god who controls the annual flooding of the Nile River
Hermes — Greek god of trade, merchants and commerce, speed, heraldry, travelers, and athletes. He is also known as the messenger of the Olympians.
Kaskuh — Hittite moon god. Information on Hittite mythology is comparatively scant, but the Hittite civilization was predominately located in modern day Turkey; its capital was Hattusa.
Loki — Norse god of mischief
Ma’at — Egyptian goddess of truth, law, order, balance, morality, and justice
Min — Egyptian god of reproduction, particularly of male potency
Odin — Norse god of war, wisdom, magic, and poetry. He rules over the Aesir (one of the supernatural races in Norse mythology) in Asgard (home of the Aesir).
Ragnarok — the Norse mythological concept of the destruction of all realms: those of mortals and immortals. But Ragnarok is also a story of rebirth as a few humans and gods will survive and begin a new cycle of life.
Thor — Norse god of storms and weather; he is also associated with oak trees, fertility, and protecting humans.
Tyr — Norse god of war whose most intact story involves sacrificing his hand so that Fenrir could be restrained
Uranus — a primordial Greek god of the sky
Wurunkatte — Hittite god of war
Zeus — Greek god of lightning and the sky who rules over the other gods of Olympus.
Also by S.M. Schmitz
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Other titles by S.M. Schmitz
Sword of Secrets, book one of the Heroes of Asgard series (fantasy & mythology)
When mortals turn their backs on gods, those gods will return with a vengeance.
Gavyn’s no hero. In fact, after a group of psychos claiming to be Sumerian gods resurface in a destructive display of power and demand the surrender of the world’s heroes, Gavyn only thinks, “Wow. Sucks to be them.” So when an old hag, who’s quite likely an ancient witch, and a young, gorgeous woman, for whom he’d at least pretend to be a hero, show up at his door insisting he’s one of the heroes the Sumerians are after, he’s skeptical…and more than a little annoyed.
But the old witch and supermodel-in-training won’t take no for an answer, and Gavyn finds himself being transported halfway across the world to an actual, honest-to-some-god training camp for men and women who embrace their destinies to safeguard Earth. And while he had every intention of continuing his stubborn refusal to become the hero the Norse gods need him to be, his own ancestor has different ideas. The dreams that connect him to a past no one can remember hint at an old deception, and the Sumerians aren’t the only enemy the Norse will have to face.
In the first book of the Heroes of Asgard series, Gavyn must accept who—and what—he is, because the forgotten gods of ancient religions have returned. And they’ll no longer be ignored.
Shadows of the Gods, book one of The Unbreakable Sword series (fantasy & mythology)
As a powerful demigod, Selena has been running from the gods who control the government agency, the New Pantheon, for the past three years, but now, they’ve caught up to her.
When they trap Selena in an alleyway in New Orleans, she is ready to admit defeat. But an unfamiliar demigod rescues her, and the more she learns about Cameron, the more she discovers their common bonds may be the key to unraveling her own mysterious history.
Blades of Ash, an Unbreakable Sword series prequel
When Olympus is destroyed, the Tuatha Dé and their Greek allies want revenge. But what their vengeance costs may haunt them forever.
Badb, one of the triune of Irish war goddesses known as the Mórrígna, is having a rough millennium: the mortals of Ireland have turned away from the Tuatha Dé, and now, the Sumerians have launched a disastrous invasion into Olympus.
Worse, the reason for the invasion isn’t as straightforward as they first thought. With powerful players stoking the flames between the Irish alliance and their enemies, both sides may ultimately lose everything, including their own worlds.
The Resurrected trilogy, a science-fiction romance (also available in The Complete Resurrected Trilogy Box Set)
Awakened from death. Herself but no longer alone in her own body. Two lives merged into one.
A mistake. An aberration. A miracle.
And a company that wants her dead for existing.
When Dietrich’s fiancée, Lottie, is killed in a car accident, he descends into his own personal Hell until he runs into her in a café two years later. Claiming she isn’t really Lottie but only possesses some of her memories, the young woman offers him an unbelievable story then disappears.
Using his position as a CIA agent to track her down, Dietrich quickly discovers Lottie remembers far more about her past life than she’d originally let on. But his attempt to learn more about the planet she comes from or the woman she is now is disrupted by a group of men from the company that transports people from their home planet to Earth when they find out about her resurrection and attempt to murder her.
Because for Lottie, something went wrong, and her existence threatens their entire business on Earth. And Dietrich’s ultimate second chance with the only woman he’s ever loved will be threatened as well.
The Chosen, a Resurrected series novel
They promised her happily ever after. Instead, they gave her Hell. Now, she's getting revenge.
When Bella agreed to travel to Earth to start a new life with the man she loved, she’d been promised two things: healing dead human bodies so they could live on this planet always worked, and they could have the happily ever after forbidden to them at home.
But soon after arriving on her new planet, she discovers both of those promises were lies. And the consequences for trusting the wrong people are deadly.
After six years of hiding from the company that helped her cross over, she is approached by a beautiful but mysterious stranger who offers her a different kind of promise: the chance for revenge. And Bella’s journey to end her own nightmare and to seek justice for the man she’d once loved is finally able to begin.
The Immortals series, a fantasy & mythology series (also available in The Complete Immortals Series Box Set)
When demons refuse to play by the rules, all Hell will break loose.
Colin and Anna have been hunting demons for a long time. But something is different in Baton Rouge. The rules are being broken and they're powerless against some of the greatest forces Hell can assemble. If they can't stop these demons from manipulating every rule of this war, then Heaven may lose the only battle that's ever really mattered.
The Golden Eagle, a romantic suspense
After a vicious second civil war in the U.S., the states that seceded are occupied, and the people there live by different rules.
Jon is the highest-ranking officer in an elite Task Force whose purpose is shrouded in mystery. Ava is just trying to survive the occupation after two years of brutal war. After meeting unexpectedly, they discover they are both willing to risk everything for the chance to love one another. But what those risks entail may be far greater than anything either could have imagined.
The Cambria Code series, a science-fiction romance
When a mysterious spaceship appears above Cambria, Zoe remains skeptical that it’s anything but an elaborate hoax. By the time the first spaceship is joined by two others, Zoe reluctantly admits that Earth has been invaded, even though it’s a pretty lame invasion: the aliens look remarkably human and keep to themselves. From what humans are able to learn about them, they seem incredibly arrogant and boring anyway.
After meeting Peyton, one of Earth’s newest residents, Zoe feels an immediate attraction to him although she is reluctant to become involved with someone who isn’t even human. But she soon discovers that these aliens are far more dangerous than they’ve led everyone to believe, and the secrets they are hiding may signal the destruction of her entire planet.
The Scavengers, a post-apocalyptic novella
When nothing is left, what will you treasure most?
In a world completely destroyed by adults, eleven-year-old Nic believes he is the only thing still alive after four years of isolation—the only thing except for the Scavengers.
When he meets Celia, another child in an empty world, they offer one another hope and the promise of an end to the kind of fear and loneliness that only a child abandoned on a dead and forsaken planet could understand.
But Nic's universe, for years centered around Celia, will be tested, and he’ll discover just how far he’s willing to go to protect them both.