Cities of the Gods (The Unbreakable Sword Series Book 2)

by S. M. Schmitz

  “That’s like… Lost City of Atlantis hidden,” Cameron responded.

  “We’re stuck with him for a little while longer, so you’ll just have to search harder,” Selena teased.

  “One day though, Sweet Goddess,” Cameron said, his voice changing just slightly as if he were nostalgic about something that hadn’t yet passed, “I’ll definitely teach you the great art of fishing.”

  “Hm,” Selena pretend-mused, “will you take the fish off the hook for me though? I’m not sure I can pull a hook out of a fish’s mouth… I’d probably try to heal it.”

  Cameron laughed and agreed with her. “If it helps with your guilt, feel free to heal them, but if it’s a good fish, we’re keeping it to eat anyway. We could totally make it in Hawaii, by the way. I could live on fish and pineapple.”

  Selena imagined them sitting on the rocks of a bay on one of the Polynesian islands, their lines in the water, an ice chest by their feet. She could almost smell the nearby ocean and fragrant flowers and feel the black sand as she wiggled her toes against the beach. “Yeah,” she said, “I think I could, too.”

  Cameron smiled at her as Jasper parked the Malibu on the side of the road. He pointed to a dock that didn’t look like it would support the weight of two people, let alone the car.

  “We’ll wait with them by the bank, and I’ll just push it in,” Selena said.

  “How much you wanna bet this is where the grandchildren of the creature of the Black Lagoon live?”

  Selena groaned and told him he was digging around the next cornfield just for that. They got out of the car and stood by Anita and Jasper, who sighed impatiently and asked them what was taking so long, and Selena pushed the Mercedes off the dock. As it dipped into the lake, she moved it away from the banks and they waited until they could no longer see the black car in the murky water before deciding it was probably safe to leave.

  Jasper pulled his keys from his pocket and was mid-sentence about stopping at a particular restaurant in Natchitoches for meat pies when a loud splash made each of the demigods turn around.

  Unusually tall waves for a lake spread out from the center where she’d left the car and she felt Cameron’s hand wrap around her arm. “Think that always happens when you drown a car?”

  “Maybe… it was like an air pocket or something,” she ventured.

  Cameron inhaled slowly and pulled her behind him. “That’s not an air pocket.”

  “What?” Jasper asked, his eyes searching the surface of the lake but aside from the waves crashing against the bank, nothing broke the surface of the water.

  “Oh,” Selena moaned, “not again.”

  “What?” Jasper demanded, his voice taking on a more panicked edge. “If you tell me that Quetzalcoatl…”

  “No,” Cameron interrupted. “He’s dead. I killed him. He can’t be here… it’s… weird, it’s not like the Norse, but it’s…”

  Selena was about to suggest they all get the hell out of here before whatever they’d disturbed now found them, but the black water of the lake suddenly shot upward in a towering spiral, the spectral figure of a woman slowly emerging from the serpentine body of the water.

  Her yellow eyes immediately settled on Cameron and Selena. “Tuatha Dé,” she hissed, the lower half of her body rising from the water and revealing the long scaled tail of the beast.

  “Not another snake,” Cameron groaned.

  “Enemies!” she shrieked, the water dripping from her writhing body as she propelled herself across the water.

  “Oh, my God,” Selena whispered, “I know who she is.”

  “Is she a god?” Cameron whispered back, his eyes never leaving the creature gliding across the top of the lake, causing tall waves to crash over the banks and onto the road.

  “No,” Selena answered, “she’s Caoranach.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “You say that like I should know who that is,” Cameron told her.

  “I don’t care,” Jasper yelled. “Let’s run to the car and get out of here!”

  “We can’t!” Selena yelled back at him. “We’ve pissed her off, and if we don’t do something, she’ll just take out her anger on the people on the lake. Your uncle is on this lake!”

  “Seriously, what is with all the snakes?” Cameron shouted.

  “Enemies,” Caoranach shrieked, “you threw a car on me trying to kill me again. You couldn’t kill me in Lough Derg and you can’t kill me here!” The giant serpent creature lunged toward Cameron, her cavernous mouth opening as she descended on the demigods.

  Cameron spun on his heels and pushed Selena to the ground, yelling at her to stay as flat as she could. She looked up at him in time to see him turning again as Caoranach’s jaws prepared to swallow him. She heard two shots firing at the same time Cameron swung at the monster, his fist knocking her back into the lake.

  “Why the hell are all the snakes trying to eat me!” Cameron yelled.

  “Forget that!” Jasper yelled back. “Why the hell didn’t our bullets kill it?”

  Anita glanced down at Selena and asked her, “Will your telekinesis work?”

  “I’m trying,” Selena answered. “All it’s doing is creating waves in the opposite direction.”

  Caoranach sprang at Cameron again, and Jasper and Anita tried shooting her for the second time, but for the second time, the bullets simply entered her green and black body and disappeared. They left no wounds behind, no holes, no evidence that she’d been shot at all. Jasper dropped his pistol and jumped at the serpent’s massive head, grabbing onto it and pelting it with his fists.

  Caoranach shook her head violently and Jasper flew onto the bank of the lake. Selena heard him groan, but he forced himself to his feet and ran back to the creature’s midsection, wrapping his arms around it to pull her back into the lake and away from the demigods of the Tuatha Dé. As she bent her head again to try to devour Cameron, he hit her and the serpent’s yellow eyes blinked, dazed and disoriented.

  Cameron ran to the tail of the serpent and wrapped his arms around it, pulling it back toward the lake and away from Selena and Anita. Jasper continued pelting Caoranach’s head with his fists, but they didn’t have the same impact as Cameron’s and the serpent seemed more annoyed than stunned or hurt.

  “Let her go!” Cameron yelled at Jasper.

  Jasper dropped to the ground and Cameron threw the massive serpent back into Black Lake. She immediately rose to the surface and set her golden eyes on him again.

  “Who are you?” she asked, her voice slippery and slithery as she darted across the water toward the demigod who had proven to be more of a challenge than she’d expected.

  “Cameron. Who are you?”

  “I am the mother of Fionn mac Cumhaill, the descendant of the great king Nuada,” she answered.

  “Whoa!” Cameron held up his hands as if the giant serpent would actually agree to a reasonable discussion. “Nuada? Then why the hell are you trying to kill me? We’re descended from the Tuatha Dé, too!”

  “Look what you’ve done to me!” she screeched.

  She lunged toward him again, and Cameron ducked and wrapped his arms around the serpent’s throat. Her yellow eyes protruded as she struggled to breathe, and she shook her head rapidly to force him to let go. He struck her again as his feet landed on the ground, and the snake’s eyes slid closed and blinked at him as she focused on the man who couldn’t be a man.

  “A god,” she hissed. Cameron tried to hit her again while she was still dazed, but she lifted her head out of his reach. “No, Son of Danu, you won’t meet your end in Caoranach.” Her dull yellow eyes blinked one more time then settled on Anita. “But you are not a god.”

  “No,” Selena breathed. She heard Cameron yelling at the monster of Black Lake, but time and sound seemed frozen as she watched the jaws of Caoranach open then swallow Anita Granger.

  The monster tried to retreat into the safety of the lake, but Cameron and Jasper grabbed her midsection and pulled her out of the
water. The long, thick body of the serpent thrashed against her restraints, but even with Cameron’s added strength, the demigods had no way of killing Caoranach.

  Selena pushed herself to her feet and screamed, “You have to get Anita out!”

  “Out?” Cameron yelled. “Anita just got eaten by a huge snake! There’s no getting out!”

  “You have to try!” Selena screamed. She ran her fingers through her long blonde hair as her mind raced with the muddled legends of this Irish creature. We can save her. We have to be able to save her. Think, Selena.

  “Mjölnir,” she whispered. She ran to the Malibu and grabbed Thor’s hammer from the backseat. She couldn’t wield it herself; she wouldn’t be strong enough. And if Cameron let go of the serpent’s neck, Caoranach would be free to swallow another demigod.

  She ran back to his side and stared at the giant black and green scales of the serpent. “In Irish myth, Conan was swallowed by Caoranach and fought his way out and survived. He was supposed to have killed the monster in the process, but if there’s any possibility Anita could be alive, we have to at least try, Cameron!”

  Caoranach thrashed against her captors more violently at the sound of Conan’s name. Jasper strained to keep her tail pinned to the ground. “Do something, Cameron!” he yelled. “Anita’s in there!”

  “Ok!” Cameron yelled back. He looked uncertainly between the hammer and the snake’s neck then his dark brown eyes filled with an angry passion. He leapt onto the snake’s back and reached for Mjölnir, raising it into the air then bringing it down on the serpent’s head. The ground shook with the impact just like when he’d struck Thor with the golden hammer, and Selena stumbled. She fell to the ground as Cameron hit Caoranach again, a gaping hole opening in the top of the snake’s body.

  Its writhing stilled as the serpent died, and Cameron slid off the beast’s back. He repeatedly slammed Mjölnir into its side, leaving surprisingly hollow holes along the length of Caoranach’s body. No blood or bone or muscle lay exposed after each blow of Thor’s hammer. Only the dark, murky water of the lake rushed out. The stagnant water drenched Selena’s feet, but she stepped closer to the side of the dead serpent and peered inside. Anita lay on her back, not breathing or moving, and Selena ducked beneath Cameron’s arm and hurried to the woman’s lifeless body. Cameron called her name, but Selena turned to him and called back, “Help me pull her out!”

  She heard Jasper’s voice answer instead. “You stay out here in case this thing is… playing possum.” Jasper ran inside and slipped his arms beneath Anita’s body, carrying her back outside to the midday air. Selena immediately fell to her knees by Anita’s side again and put her hand on the woman’s arm and ran her fingers along her cold cheek. She felt nothing.

  “Oh, God,” Jasper groaned. “We’re too late.”

  Selena didn’t have time to appreciate this man’s sympathy, his compassion that he always kept carefully hidden. Or maybe Anita reminded him of someone he knew and loved, his mother or Aunt Sue. But whatever the reason, he dropped to his knees on the other side of the woman’s body, and his dark eyes beseeched Selena to save this woman’s life, to reassure him it wasn’t too late.

  “I can’t promise, Jasper,” she whispered. “It worked for Alan, but…”

  Cameron lowered himself to the ground beside her and put his hand on Selena’s arm. “I have faith in you.”

  Selena swallowed back tears as she continued to concentrate on Anita’s body, trying to restore life where it had been ripped away too soon. She closed her eyes and felt tears trickling down her cheeks. Please work. Please come back. Breathe again, Anita.

  She opened her eyes when she felt movement beneath her hand, the sporadic sputters of Anita Granger’s chest as her lungs worked to expel the water that had drowned her. “Help her roll over,” Selena said.

  Jasper’s arm was behind the woman’s back before Selena could finish speaking. Dark water rushed from her mouth as she coughed then gasped for air. Anita moaned and her eyes fluttered as thoughts, disorganized and jumbled and confused, but thoughts and sensations, began to fire in her brain again. The lack of oxygen had caused some tissue damage, but nothing Selena couldn’t heal now. Anita’s green eyes blinked and finally settled on the woman who had brought her back from death.

  “Selena,” she whispered.

  “Sh,” Selena said. “You’ll be fine, Anita. I’m done now. Jasper, help her to the car. Let’s get out of here.”

  Jasper had just wrapped his arm around Anita and was about to help her stand when his eyes darted past Selena and Cameron toward the body of Caoranach. “What the hell…?” he murmured.

  Cameron clutched Mjölnir in his hand and spun around, ready to strike the reanimated serpent, but it wasn’t the body of the mythical creature that had surprised Jasper but what was rising above it.

  A gray mist rose from one of the wounds in the top of the dead monster, coalescing into the shape of a woman, not much younger than Anita, her long dress sweeping the top of the snake’s scales as she looked down on the demigods below her. Unlike Caoranach, there was nothing malevolent about this apparition’s eyes or the way it looked at Cameron. She smiled at him, conveying some unspoken gratitude, then her form broke apart and blew away in the breeze.

  “What the bloody hell was that?” Jasper asked slowly.

  “Murna,” Selena answered softly. “I’ll have to ask Badb for the real story, but according to legend, the shin bones of Fionn mac Cumhaill’s mother, Murna, were thrown into Lough Derg, and they came alive as this monster, which ate Fionn’s son, Conan. Perhaps her spirit has been trapped inside that creature for over a thousand years…”

  “Was she really descended from Nuada?” Cameron asked.

  Selena nodded. “Supposedly.”

  “Don’t guess her spirit form is going to come back and help us track down this heir of his that we’re supposed to be looking for?”

  “I’m guessing that’s not high on her priority list right now, and honestly, if I’d finally escaped that curse after all these centuries, I wouldn’t come anywhere near Earth.”

  Anita looked down at her soaked clothes then back at the body of the dead serpent that had most likely haunted the Irish lake for over a millennium before moving across the Atlantic and finding a new home. “For the record,” Anita said, “I don’t recommend getting swallowed by any kind of mythological creature.”

  “Cameron, help me get the body back into the lake,” Jasper said. “Selena, can you make sure it’s hidden?”

  “Now that it’s dead, I can move it myself. You must be sore and exhausted. Just take Anita to the car.”

  Jasper nodded at her and even though Anita most likely didn’t need his help, she let him walk her across the empty road to the Malibu. Anita was psychic after all; whomever she reminded Jasper of, she most likely already knew about her, so she graciously accepted his assistance. Cameron waited until they were in the car before turning to Selena and begging her, “Please don’t tell me this means I can’t hate him anymore.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be back to acting obnoxious in no time. But if you had any doubts he is one of our allies, I hope they’ve at least been laid to rest.”

  Cameron sighed and begrudgingly admitted he’d been somewhat handy to have around then he smiled at her, that breathtaking smile that always made her heart summersault in a kind of pure elation she hadn’t known was possible.

  “I told you, Selena,” he said. “What you can do… you’re incredible. You were scared you’d lose Badb, which is the only reason you needed me.”

  No. I have every reason for needing you.

  Selena smiled and thought if she weren’t drenched and cold herself, she’d probably notice her cheeks warming again. Instead, she nodded toward the body of the serpent and it rolled toward the bank, splashing into the lake, where it sank to the bottom, never to be seen again.

  Chapter Twelve

  After battling an Irish mythological creature that somehow swam across t
he Atlantic ocean, into the Gulf of Mexico, and found its way into a lake in the middle of Louisiana, and having to revive one of the demigods in their group who was eaten by that giant serpent that had no business hanging out in a Louisiana lake, they decided to forego the meat pies and just return to their motel and at least clean up before deciding what to do about Nuada’s heir.

  They still had no leads, no knowledge of the person they were supposed to be looking for, a psychic who Badb insisted they needed but felt as clueless as everyone else, and Samhain was only two and a half days away, which meant Ninurta’s invasion of the Otherworld would be occurring in a day and a half.

  Selena pulled the towel off her wet hair and sat heavily on the edge of her bed. Cameron glanced at her then went back to reading something on his phone.

  “Wikipedia?” she asked.

  “No, Wikipedia was useless this time.”

  “Man, I wish I’d been recording that.”

  Cameron snickered and tossed his phone to her. “Before you showered, you mentioned Badb insisted we needed Anita to help us find Nuada’s descendant, right?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So… you know how the gods are. And I think Badb has an idea about why Anita might be able to help us, but she didn’t want to say anything because gods can’t stand being wrong.”

  Selena shrugged and looked over the screen Cameron had been reading. It looked like a genealogy list. “Who are these people?”

  “Everyone I could find who’s related to Anita.”

  “Cameron, she’s descended from Badb.”

  “Anita is, but she’s also an Irish demigod. Who knows how long our ancestors lived in Ireland and at one time, they may have mostly known each other. Demigods are the heroes of western myths, right? So Anita’s ancestor and Nuada’s ancestor may have had a kid together at some point, and that’s how Anita is connected to all of this.”

  “That’s… kind of out there, even for you.”

  Cameron shook his head and took his phone back. “I’m not sure what that means, but it sounds like an insult. And I’ll bet you this stupid hammer that I’m right.”