The Phantom Queen (The Guardians of Tara Book 3)

by S. M. Schmitz

  “Don’t worry, Sun God. This will be quick, and I’ll return your bodies to the Tuatha Dé. Perhaps your family’s lives can be spared if they see how powerless they are now against me.”

  “Still kinda worried,” Cameron admitted. “Mostly because the pervy heart-stealing god is about to steal my girlfriend’s heart and mine.”

  “That definitely makes me worried,” Selena agreed.

  “I hope he does get stuck with my personality,” Cameron added. “Like getting mad cow disease from eating a cow’s brain.”

  “Who does that anyway?” Selena asked.

  Huitzilopochtli grunted at them then told Xipe Totec, “Let’s not walk there.”

  The temple suddenly appeared before them, and Selena inhaled sharply as she realized what building this structure imitated. I’ve been reading about the Aztec gods since I first fell in Quetzalcoatl’s swamp.

  I know…I’ve been with you the whole time, remember?

  Don’t be a smartass right now, Selena begged.

  Sorry, love. But you know that’s impossible.

  Cameron heard her sigh internally as the Aztec gods forced them onto the stairs. Apparently, they intended to make them climb to the top of the pyramid even though they could obviously teleport the Irish gods. He was pretty sure it was just because they were a bunch of sadistic bastards.

  This is the Templo Mayor, Selena explained. The main temple of Tenochtitlan. One side was dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, the other to Tlaloc.

  Um…I’m pretty sure I killed Tlaloc, too.

  “Cut that out,” Huitzilopochtli warned. “It’s incredibly annoying.”

  “We’re just climbing stairs,” Cameron lied. “And I agree: That is incredibly annoying.”

  “Shut up and keep climbing,” Huitzilopochtli sighed.

  “I’ll keep climbing, but I can’t promise I’ll shut up about it,” Cameron answered. “And you’re the one who spoke to me first. I actually was quiet before so really, you started it.”

  “Do we really have to follow the sacrificial ceremony this time?” Tonatiuh asked. “At this rate, I may not survive his sacrifice.”

  Huitzilopochtli snickered, which surprised Cameron because he didn’t think a god who murdered people could have a sense of humor, and shook his head. “I won’t risk not assuming all of his power by taking short cuts. We’ll follow the ceremony exactly as we always have.”

  Any chance all that reading you did is giving you an idea how we can get out of being sacrificed? Cameron asked Selena.

  No. But how do you think this worked? Did the gods model this temple after the ones the Aztecs made or vice versa?

  Selena, that’s at the bottom of my information-I-need-to-know list right now.

  You make a lot of lists, she pointed out.

  I have to make a lot of lists. Gods are always trying to kill us and invade our world.

  Conceded, she agreed.

  “I told you to cut that out,” Huitzilopochtli interrupted again.

  “Dude,” Cameron sighed. “How many stairs are there? We’re almost halfway. Why don’t you just sacrifice me right here?”

  “Did you really kill your sister and throw her dismembered body down a mountain?” Selena asked.

  “Sounds about right,” Cameron said.

  “And you’re absolutely sure we can’t just kill them now?” Xipe Totec asked.

  “I’m reconsidering,” Huitzilopochtli muttered.

  Selena stopped climbing so Cameron immediately stopped, too. “I need to rest a minute.”

  Tonatiuh obviously disagreed because he pushed her and ordered her to keep going, but Selena’s foot caught on the edge of the next step and she tripped instead. Since Tonatiuh had been holding her arms behind her back, she didn’t have time to break her fall with her hands, and her elbow and head hit the steps first.

  “Selena!” Cameron shouted, panic welling within him as he noticed her blood staining the stone steps beneath her. Fire exploded from his body, and he thought he heard the Aztec gods screaming but his attention was only on Selena. He dropped to her side, not even fully realizing he’d been able to drop to her side and slip his arms under her, until he’d picked her up and held her closely.

  “How is he doing this?” Tonatiuh yelled.

  “Don’t let him leave!” Huitzilopochtli yelled back.

  But truthfully, Cameron couldn’t figure out how to leave. The Seventh Heaven wasn’t like the Otherworld where he just wanted to be somewhere and went, and it wasn’t like Hel with a specific path through dark valleys. This realm looked suspiciously like Tenochtitlan would have looked before the Spanish invasion, complete with a lake surrounding an island with temples and a footbridge that extended to another strip of land. The island was intersected with multiple canals, but no boats waited on top of the water to transport anyone around the island.

  But Huitzilopochtli had obviously recreated the world in which he’d once been worshipped.

  As Cameron carried his unconscious girlfriend down the steps of Huitzilopochtli’s temple, a second fire erupted, one he hadn’t started. It had burst from Huitzilopochtli himself.

  “I won’t fail my people a second time!” he screamed.

  Cameron tightened his grip on Selena as his anger began to mix with fear.

  Huitzilopochtli’s quest for domination stemmed not only from his own desire for power but his desire for revenge.

  “Your people,” Cameron told him, “are gone. And so are the men who slaughtered them and stole your land.”

  “Their descendants live…” Huitzilopochtli started, but Cameron interrupted him.

  “Their descendants worship a different god. And you’re going to kill them because you were stupid enough to trigger Ragnarok!”

  “I will save them,” Huitzilopochtli scoffed. “And the people of Cortés will burn.”

  “Dude, that was five hundred years ago! Isn’t there some statute of limitations on revenge?”

  “They slaughtered us with a disease we couldn’t fight back against!” the burning god screamed.

  Selena stirred in his arms, and Cameron stepped onto the ground, still watching the terrifyingly enraged Aztec god of sun and war. “I know. I studied history. And I’d have a hell of a lot more sympathy for you if you weren’t trying to kill my girlfriend and me and planning on wiping out almost an entire planet. That’s why you modeled your realm after Tenochtitlan, isn’t it? You’re going to bring Aztec descendants here to live while everyone else dies.”

  Huitzilopochtli gestured to Selena, who’d awakened and clung tightly to Cameron, and asked, “How are you not burning her?”

  “Oh…am I still on fire?” Cameron asked back.

  Huitzilopochtli sighed again and yelled something in Nahuatl to his subordinates, who’d been joined by Chalchiuhtotolin and Xolotl. Xipe Totec, who had been holding Cameron’s arms when he burst into flames, had dropped behind the other gods, his hands and arms blistered and raw. Cameron thought he was lucky they were in the Seventh Heaven because every time he burst into flames anywhere else, those flames extended far wider and higher than they did here. All of the Aztec gods would have likely died.

  “Cameron,” Selena whispered. “Remember when we first met?”

  “Of course I do. Ukko was about to capture you in New Orleans.”

  Selena shook her head and closed her eyes. She’d managed to summon enough of her own powers to heal the worst of her injuries, but she still had a splitting headache.

  The next day…in the Basin. When Quetzalcoatl kidnapped me and hauled me off to the Otherworld, how did he get there? How did Ukko get there?

  They summoned their powers. When Quetzalcoatl took you, it looked like he was playing Dorothy. You were both swept up in a tornado. With Ukko, we traveled there in a massive storm.

  Exactly.

  Um…Selena, I’m a sun god. And even if I had full control over fire here, how would a fire help us get anywhere?

  Selena sighed irritably like she were h
aving to explain herself to a child. Cameron couldn’t blame her, but then again, he also thought she must have a concussion for thinking fire could get them out of Huitzilopochtli’s realm.

  I think the winds and storm were just effects of seeing those gods yielding so much of their power. It has nothing to do with how we actually get from one place to another. Since we’re Irish, we need only a little of our power to travel to the Otherworld so it looks instantaneous.

  Makes sense…except there are five pissed off gods about to kill us so it probably doesn’t matter.

  “I’ve told you both to stop doing that,” Huitzilopochtli hissed.

  “Put me down,” Selena groaned aloud.

  “Now this really is reminding me of that day in the swamp.”

  “We’ll work together,” she said as he helped her stand. She gripped his hand and concentrated on returning to Houston but nothing happened.

  “We’ve tried this before,” Cameron pointed out. “When we were both demigods.”

  “And it worked,” she hissed. “Once you stopped being a smartass about it.”

  Huitzilopochtli placed his hands on his hips and glared at them. “You’re wasting your time. You’ll never be able to use enough of your power to get out of my world.”

  “Probably not,” Cameron agreed. “If I were here alone, anyway. But you were stupid enough to take us both at the same time.”

  Huitzilopochtli lunged toward him, but his hands never reached the young god because the Seventh Heaven had disappeared, replaced by the familiar street of Houston with the still smoldering piles of serpents’ bones and rapidly dwindling hordes of lions and bulls.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Badb yelled at them. She squinted at Cameron specifically and shook her head. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. Just get rid of these animals so we can go after Nergal and Tarhunt.”

  Cameron shrugged and sent a fire down the street, forcing the lions and bulls to run in the opposite direction. Even though they probably weren’t really lions and bulls—not Earth lions and bulls anyway—he actually felt kind of bad for them since it’s not like they were snakes and hoped the gods he didn’t feel at all bad for would return to retrieve their animals. But neither god was that stupid.

  A blur of white and yellow in his peripheral vision surprised him, but before he could turn to his right to see what had caused it, London was beside him, panting as she pointed in the direction the animals were running. “Why didn’t you do that ten minutes ago?”

  “We were only gone ten minutes?” Cameron asked.

  “You were gone?” London asked back.

  “I hate you,” he reminded her.

  “No, you don’t,” she reminded him back.

  Badb sheathed her sword and gaped at him. “You were in the Seventh Heaven?”

  “Stay out of my head, Crow!” Cameron scolded.

  “How did you end up in the Seventh Heaven?” Badb exclaimed.

  “How do you think?” Cameron exclaimed back then looked at Selena and asked, “How did we end up there?”

  “Um…magic?” she answered.

  Cameron nodded smartly and told Badb, “There you go. Aztec magic.”

  “I don’t even know what to say to that,” Badb admitted.

  “Anyone else more concerned by the gods who just showed up on this street?” Athena interrupted.

  Cameron cringed and glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see the Aztec gods he and Selena had just escaped, but instead, Nergal and Tarhunt had returned. And this time, they’d come with their own army.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Selena’s hand slipped inside Cameron’s again as she silently counted the gods standing amidst the remains of Tarhunt’s serpents. The Guardians were clearly outnumbered, but neither he nor Selena could identify any of the gods who had come to Houston to confront those who would defend Earth at all costs.

  “Question,” Cameron called out to them.

  Nergal sighed heavily and shot him a look that Cameron interpreted as, “Hurry up, asshole.”

  “Where did you find so many Hittite gods? Is there some Hittite purgatory where they’ve just been hanging out, waiting to be relevant again?”

  “Not helping,” Macha hissed at him.

  Cameron pointed toward the group standing next to Tarhunt and insisted, “They’re Hittites! It’s an entirely fair question.”

  Nergal tilted his head to the side and asked, “How did you get away from Huitzilopochtli?”

  “Okay, you’re new at this so I’m going to give you a pass,” Cameron answered. “But in the future, don’t bother asking how I do anything. I don’t know and I’ll never know.”

  “Totally true,” London hurriedly added.

  “Shouldn’t you be getting Jasper out of here or something?” Cameron asked her.

  “Nope,” Jasper intervened. “Just point me in the direction of the weaker gods. I can handle them.”

  “I can’t handle your ego,” Cameron mumbled.

  “Says the god who expects us all to change our vocabularies to make him happy,” Jasper retorted.

  “That’s just common courtesy,” Cameron responded.

  Selena tilted her head back at Nergal and demanded, “Who are all of you?”

  Nergal smiled at her. “You are carrying quite the secret, little girl.”

  Cameron’s Spear lit up beside him, and he warned, “Call her that again, and I’ll put a spear through your heart.”

  Nergal just kept smiling at her. “I know so much about you, thanks to an unexpected ally.”

  “Our traitor,” Badb hissed. “And not god enough to show himself here.”

  Nergal lifted a shoulder but kept his eyes and annoyingly condescending smile on Selena.

  “But whomever is betraying us wants the Stone of Fal, which is only useful if he intends to attempt a coup. Isn’t Huitzilopochtli attempting his own invasion of our world? There’s only one Otherworld, and we all know you gods aren’t going to share it,” Macha said.

  Nergal glanced at her and lifted the same shoulder. “What concern is it to me what the Irish do with the Stone or what Huitzilopochtli does with the Otherworld? You already know why I’m here.”

  “Yeah,” Cameron said. “You’re in a very long line of people who want me dead.”

  “As long as one of us is successful, why should I care about that either?”

  “Why is there always so much talking when we should be fighting?” London asked.

  “Because Cameron is always with us,” Jasper answered.

  “Right,” London sighed.

  Mjölnir sailed past Cameron’s face so he twisted around and shot Thor a “What the hell?” look.

  Thor lifted his hands and said, “I couldn’t warn you without alerting Nergal I was about to throw my hammer at him.”

  Cameron nodded. “Warning your enemy you’re about to attack him is generally a bad idea.”

  Thor pointed to Nergal and complained, “That would have worked a lot better had he not disappeared.”

  “Gods really should stop doing that,” Cameron agreed.

  Nergal reappeared farther from Tarhunt, most likely to force the Guardians to thin their own lines. Cameron arched an eyebrow at Tarhunt and called, “You never answered our question. Who the hell are all these gods? And is there a Hittite purgatory?”

  “Do you even know what purgatory is?” Tarhunt shot back.

  “Dude, I’m Irish. Of course I know what purgatory is.”

  “Um, Cameron?” Badb interrupted. “We don’t have a purgatory. That’s part of the Catholic belief system, and we’re not Catholic.”

  “Oh,” Cameron replied. “Okay, but I still know what it is.”

  Tarhunt sighed irritably and lifted his axe, prepared to throw it at the young sun god who was most likely annoying everyone—even his own friends and allies. As soon as the battle axe left Tarhunt’s hand, Cameron set it on fire, and Selena forced it to fall to the dark pavement of the Houston street.
>
  All of the gods who’d come to fight the Guardians stared at the fire burning on the ground before staring at the Irish sun god and the healer who could so easily destroy their weapons. Cameron just shrugged at them. “You could all go home,” he offered. “Believe it or not, I don’t actually enjoy killing people, even asshole gods like you.”

  All of the gods lifted their weapons in response.

  “That worked well,” Selena told him.

  “Probably should have left out the ‘asshole gods’ part,” Cameron agreed.

  As arrows and axes sailed toward them, Cameron ignited a wall of fire, and Selena once again pulled them down into the blaze. The young gods sensed Nergal and Tarhunt’s army materializing behind them on the street before the other Guardians and spun around to defend their friends, but it was too late.

  Tarhunt, with a new axe in hand, threw it at the closest god, and the Phantom Queen collapsed as the blade of the axe sunk into her chest.

  “Macha!” Badb screamed.

  Nemain reached her sister’s side first as pandemonium erupted between Nergal and Tarhunt’s army and the Guardians. But Badb seemed frozen in place, her eyes never wavering from her sister’s body, her own sword falling from her fingers onto the pavement. The metallic clang as it hit the rough surface of the street finally broke Cameron from his stupor, and he reached for her arm but the war goddess didn’t seem to notice his touch.

  “Selena will save her,” he promised.

  It seemed as if Badb couldn’t even hear him. He let go of her arm and gripped his Spear to seek out the god who had murdered his friend. His eyes had just settled on Tarhunt when an invisible force shattered windows all around them, fanning the flames of Cameron’s fire that still raged on the street, and knocking gods to their knees. Even Cameron had fallen and as he scrambled to his feet, anxious to defend the friend whose shock kept her paralyzed, he noticed she alone hadn’t fallen.

  In all the time he’d known Badb, the most famous of the war goddesses of the Tuatha Dé, he’d never been scared of her. She was his friend, a goddess who loved her family and had earned the reputation as their defender. But watching her now, her hair brighter than the flames behind her, her eyes so dark they appeared black, and the same mysterious force that erupted from her still radiating around her as if she alone were trapped in the winds of a hurricane, he found himself backing away from her.