The Last Guardian of Tara (The Guardians of Tara Book 5)

by S. M. Schmitz

  Hanna let her arms fall by her side and blinked at her father then her mother then at her father again. She’d been so focused on fulfilling her destiny, on taking her place as the Last Guardian of Tara and making her parents and Fate proud that she hadn’t fully realized just how much her life would be changing… and just how much she didn’t want it to.

  “Daddy,” she whispered. Tears stung her eyes, and she hastily wiped them away as Selena hugged her and reminded her they’d never be far, but it wasn’t the same. They would exist in different worlds, and their lives would spin in different circles, side by side but never converging.

  This was too much. Even Fate had no right to ask this of her, to demand she leave her family and friends and home.

  Cameron put his arms around her, too, and told her he was sorry for making her transition more difficult, but even twenty-five years hadn’t been enough time to prepare for her leaving the Otherworld. He doubted twenty-five centuries would have been enough time. Hanna nodded against his shoulder, and when she sensed Ukko’s presence joining them, she didn’t bother lifting her head.

  She no longer cared about finding Enlil; she only wanted to go home with her mother and father and ask Badb to take her to New Orleans so they could celebrate her birthday and come home a bit tipsy. Her parents would teasingly chastise her and her mother would present her with a puzzle box filled with colorful stones from the stream in Murias, and her father would tell her about the surprise fishing trip to the Atchafalaya he’d planned with her grandfather and Uncle Logan that they’d take as soon as she slept off the hurricanes she’d downed with Badb.

  Selena smoothed her hair and Ukko cleared his throat uncomfortably, but she still didn’t lift her head. She didn’t look at Badb, Lugh, and Prometheus either when they opened the door and asked Ukko what he’d learned from the Sumerian sun goddess.

  Instead of answering them, he asked, “What happened here?”

  “Not sure,” Lugh said.

  “Just coming to terms with a difficult future,” Selena explained.

  Hanna finally peeked at the Finnish god who was staring at her with equal parts compassion and confusion then he smiled and told her, “Your instincts serve you well.”

  Hanna took a deep breath, resigning herself to finishing this battle against what would hopefully be the last supernatural threat against Earth for a long time. “She knows where he is?”

  “She knows where he most likely is,” Ukko clarified. “And why the New Pantheon hasn’t been able to find him.”

  “There are two more heavens,” Badb breathed.

  Ukko glanced at her and nodded, and his smile pulled higher. “Yes. And Fate has intervened on your behalf again, because Šerida even told me how to get there.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The angry vortices of the Highest Heaven swirled in methodical patterns just like Olympus, only what was left of An’s realm was green and blue rather than purple. Hanna had the strangest thought that the colors didn’t even make sense in these destroyed worlds since purple and green weren’t primary colors, but nothing about the worlds of gods followed the laws of Earth. Ukko pointed to the swirls of light and said, “We have to go through them.”

  “Through them,” Hanna repeated. “Like portals?”

  Ukko shrugged but kept his attention on the tornadoes in front of them. If they didn’t look so deadly, they would have been unnaturally beautiful. “They’re not really portals, just blocking our path to the other Sumerian heavens. It’s obviously possible to cross through them though since Enlil and his followers do it all the time.”

  “But how?” Badb asked.

  Prometheus picked up a rock and tossed it into the Highest Heaven, and the whirlwinds immediately cast it out. He glanced at Ukko and gestured toward the green and blue winds. “I’m not going in there.”

  “It’s not like we can just go around it,” Hanna argued. “We’d end up walking through Baghdad. If this is the only way to get to Enlil, then I’m going.”

  Prometheus groaned and shook his head. “There’s a reason gods avoid destroyed realms. If we just walk up to it, we’ll get killed.”

  “We have to calm those winds,” Hanna agreed.

  Ares snorted then seemed to realize she was serious. “Calm the winds… of a destroyed world…”

  “So… does anyone have an angry mass of energy calming power we don’t know about?” Cameron asked. “Because now would be a good time to share it.”

  “Let me check,” Hanna said. She searched her pockets and turned them inside out then held up the green stone and list for her father to see. “I’ve got nothing useful.”

  Ukko sighed in their direction and mumbled, “Your father’s been a bad influence on you.”

  “Hey,” Cameron said. “She has half my genes. There’s only so much Selena’s half can cancel out.”

  “I really don’t see how any of this is going to help us get past the Highest Heaven,” Athena objected. “Perhaps you can try arguing about something that actually matters.”

  “Perhaps,” Cameron agreed, but he didn’t elaborate, so Athena squinted at him and threatened, “That’s it. I’m going to get Jasper.”

  “Why?” Cameron asked. “So you can both be useless together?”

  Athena blinked at him, and Cameron grinned sheepishly back at her and said, “Sorry. That was really only meant for Jasper.”

  “I’m going back to Findias,” Ukko announced.

  “Don’t blame you,” Prometheus said.

  “Think you can go back to Šerida and ask her how to get across?” Selena asked Ukko.

  “She shared everything she knew,” Ukko replied. “Even if I weren’t psychic, I know she has no reason to hide anything from me anyway. She and Enlil have never exactly been friends.”

  Prometheus ran his fingers through his hair and offered, “I think I know how to get across, but it’s not going to be pleasant.”

  “Does it involve giant snakes?” Cameron asked.

  “Um… no.”

  “Then I’m good.”

  “Me, too,” Thor added.

  “What about kamikaze hummingbirds?” Ares asked. “I really wasn’t a fan of those either.”

  “No kamikaze hummingbirds,” Prometheus assured him.

  “Then I’m good, too,” Ares decided.

  Prometheus opened his mouth to explain his plan, but Badb asked, “Scorpion men? I think I hate those most of all.”

  Prometheus grunted at them all and exclaimed, “No scorpion men. No creatures of any kind.”

  Badb nodded in approval and said, “Then you may continue.”

  The Titan glanced at Athena, London, Macha, and Nemain to see if they would contribute their own fears, but the goddesses just smiled at him as if they’d never join in on the group’s bantering. “Enlil is a god of the wind,” Prometheus explained. “He’s likely calming those tornadoes enough to cross. If the Dagda can do the same, we can probably get through it without dying.”

  “I’m definitely up for risking my life on a probably,” Cameron responded.

  “Mom should stay here in case this doesn’t work,” Hanna decided. “At least she can probably bring us back to life.”

  “You,” Selena said, “won’t be going first.”

  “I’ll go,” Cameron offered.

  Selena shook her head quickly and grabbed his arm, just in case he decided to try it before the Dagda even arrived.

  “It’s my idea,” Prometheus said. “I’ll go first.”

  Hanna’s stomach flipped and she wanted to talk him out of it, too, but truthfully, there was no one she was comfortable sending into those snarling vortices of destructive power. And she didn’t have time to convince him they could come up with a different plan—he’d already summoned the Dagda.

  The father of the Tuatha Dé rubbed his long red-brown beard as he studied the tangled mass of energy and listened to Prometheus’s plan. It sounded even crazier now, deadlier. Suicidal even. But the Dagda nodded
along and concentrated on the green and blue swirls that no longer seemed beautiful at all. The spinning winds slowed but never stopped, and Prometheus took a deep breath then grabbed Hanna’s hand, holding it to his chest as he kissed her. But far too soon, he let go and stepped into the remnants of the Highest Heaven.

  Hanna gasped, and her fingers rose to her lips as she searched the green and blue whirlwinds, but there was nothing there.

  Prometheus was gone.

  Hanna paced nervously in front of the tangled bands of energy, waiting and praying for some sign that Prometheus had survived. The Dagda kept insisting no one else should venture into the Highest Heaven until they knew whether or not Prometheus’s plan had worked. She’d tried to convince him that if the Titan were hurt, he’d have no way of letting them know he needed help and someone had to go after him. But the Dagda stubbornly refused to back down, and the gods of the Tuatha Dé so rarely contradicted or disobeyed him.

  As she paced in front of Cameron, he finally grabbed her arm and stopped her. “It’s been five minutes. Dagda, I’m going to have to take Hanna’s side here. We can’t abandon Prometheus.”

  “And how many gods will we send through there to die?” the Dagda replied.

  “Let me go,” Cameron answered. “And if I don’t come back in the same amount of time, you’ll know this can’t be done.”

  “No,” Selena screamed, but Hanna had no intention of allowing her father to cross a deadly portal either. She pulled her arm out of his grasp and told them all that she would cross, and she was going alone. Not surprisingly, her parents immediately protested, but Hanna gestured toward the storm in front of her and ordered the Dagda to calm its winds.

  “Hanna,” he tried, but she cut him off, asking him again to calm the winds so she could cross.

  Her parents reached for her, intending to physically stop her from going after Prometheus, but neither of them would stand by while the other was in danger. How often had her own father risked his life to protect Selena? How often had her mother cared more about his safety than her own? Hanna glanced over her shoulder at her parents and whispered, “I’m so sorry. I love you so much,” then sent them home.

  The Dagda’s eyes widened, and she asked for the third time, “Calm the winds. Please!”

  This time, the Dagda finally listened and the swirling colors settled. Hanna took a deep breath and jumped through them.

  Heat and fiery pain, like the stings of wasps, jabbed through her skin, burrowing deeper until she became convinced that insects were actually taking up residence inside her body. As she landed on a hard ground, which also swarmed in green and blue whorls, daggers climbed through her calves and she bit her lip so she wouldn’t scream. Her vision blurred, and she held out her hands to break her fall, but a hand wrapped around her wrist and pulled her out of those swarms of hornets.

  Hanna toppled into a warm, dry, mercifully pain-free world, and Prometheus helped her stand. “You’re right,” she groaned. “That was definitely not pleasant.”

  Prometheus nodded and rubbed his arm as if he could still feel the pain of crossing through a destroyed world. Hanna looked around the Hidden Heaven and whispered, “Good sign—I don’t see any snakes.”

  Prometheus snickered and glanced shyly at her before fumbling with an awkward apology. “About that kiss… I just… you know, I didn’t know if—”

  “It’s okay,” Hanna interrupted. “I thought the way we both felt was kind of obvious.”

  “Yeah,” he sighed. “But I should really work on my timing.”

  “Well, if you think you’re about to die, it seems like a great time to do all those things you’ve been putting off.”

  Prometheus laughed and nodded. “If we somehow survive this, we should…” Prometheus trailed off and seemed deep in thought for a moment before finishing. “Okay, I don’t actually know what people do anymore when they go on dates, but we should figure that out and do it.”

  “What have you been doing for the past twenty-five years?”

  He lifted a shoulder and said, “Trying to catch up on a lot of missed time. When I was thrown into Tartarus, I knew little of the world beyond the Mediterranean. I knew many of the gods of other pantheons, but almost nothing about the human world where no one believed in me. And then I come out of the abyss, and everything is so completely different in ways I couldn’t have imagined. It was completely overwhelming. Your parents offered to let me stay in Murias or Gorias with the other Greek gods, but you’ll see Hanna… we’re so connected to Earth that living anywhere else seems like a punishment.”

  Hanna looked away from him and pretended to study the empty landscape again. He was right, of course, but that didn’t mean she was ready to accept moving out of Murias. She was about to tell him that having him with her would make her transition so much easier when she finally sensed that they weren’t alone in this heaven after all. But the spirits she felt weren’t gods—they’d found the missing mortals from Earth.

  “Oh, my God,” Hanna whispered. “They’re all here… how will we get them home?”

  “Once we find Enlil’s vessel and kill him, we should be able to safely transport everyone,” Prometheus said.

  “He probably sensed us as soon as we arrived and is planning some massive assault.”

  “We probably should have planned some massive assault. I really hope we get better at this.”

  Hanna nodded in complete smartass agreement. “How much do you think Fate is regretting making us the Guardians of Tara?”

  “About as much as I’m regretting jumping through the Highest Heaven in the first place.”

  A thin wisp of gray smoke curled slowly toward the sky behind a hill in the distance, and Hanna gestured to it even though Prometheus had most likely seen it as well. “Gotta be a trap.”

  “Yeah, but standing here isn’t helping either.”

  “Shouldn’t we have our own army?” she asked. “I kinda feel like Earth’s guardians should have their own army.”

  “I think we left them behind in Baghdad.”

  “This is extraordinarily bad planning on our part.”

  Prometheus smiled at her and held out both hands, one holding a sword and one a spear. “You’ve had the best teachers that ever lived. You may not even need me for this.”

  “Please don’t repeat that in front of Badb. Her ego doesn’t need inflating.” Hanna quickly scanned both weapons and decided on the spear. After all, it was in her blood.

  “As soon as we confirm Enlil’s vessel is in this world, kill him, and get all of those people out of here, we should destroy this place,” Prometheus suggested.

  Hanna glanced over her shoulder at the green and blue torrents and took a deep breath. “But there’s no easy way out for us. If we destroy this world, we’ll kill ourselves, too.”

  “Have I mentioned that we really should have planned this better?”

  Hanna was about to agree when an unfamiliar god appeared before them, casually tossing a fireball into the air and catching it like he was playing a game, not wielding a mass of fiery gasses. So Hanna arched an eyebrow at him and created her own fireball, but made sure it was larger and burned hotter.

  Prometheus held up his empty hand and complained, “I feel so useless.”

  The god who’d thought he could intimidate the intruders stopped tossing his fireball in the air and gaped at Hanna’s hand. She jutted her chin toward the wisps of smoke and asked, “Did you do that?”

  The fireball god didn’t answer her.

  “What is on fire?” Prometheus tried. “And is Enlil over there? Honestly, I’d settle for his soul’s vessel.”

  The fireball god didn’t answer him either.

  “Maybe he doesn’t speak English,” Hanna said.

  “Okay,” Prometheus responded. “I speak two hundred languages, although many of them are dead now. Which one should I try?”

  “Um… Sumerian?”

  Prometheus nodded smartly. “Good choice.”


  He began to speak to the god still holding a fireball, but the Sumerian seemed to break out of his stupor and grunted at the Titan. “I speak English, dumbass. How did you get here?”

  Prometheus jerked a thumb over his shoulder and answered, “I assume the same way you did.”

  “We don’t go through there. We’re Sumerian. Just as the Irish can easily travel to the Otherworld without having to harness their powers, we can instantaneously travel here. Enlil only had to find this heaven.”

  “Oh,” Hanna said to Prometheus. “We’re really lucky your plan actually worked then.”

  The fireball god scoffed and looked them over quickly. “Did you really come here alone? This is either some suicidal distraction while your friends launch a better invasion or just incredibly arrogant and stupid.”

  “Probably both,” Hanna agreed.

  “I don’t think it can be both,” Prometheus argued. “So I’m going with the latter.”

  Three other unfamiliar Sumerian gods joined the fireball god, and Hanna suddenly found herself missing Badb and Thor, who would have known who these gods were and how to fight them. Not surprisingly, the god they’d come to the Hidden Heaven to find was still absent.

  One of the new gods lunged at Prometheus, who deflected his blow with the blade of his sword and pivoted on the ball of his right foot, swinging around so that the tip of his blade punctured the god’s stomach. Hanna threw both her spear and the fireball at the same time, setting one god on fire and killing the other as the spear pierced his heart.

  The fireball god and his one surviving partner glanced between the bodies on the ground and the two intruders. He must have summoned more help because he was quickly joined by a dozen other gods… and among them was the one god who’d forced Hanna to become the Last Guardian of Tara long before she was ready.

  “Enlil,” she hissed. She conjured another spear and prepared to throw it at the soulless god, but he lifted his hand and her spear disappeared. Beside her, Prometheus mumbled, “Bastard just took my sword.”