Thor scratched his chin then nodded. “Sounds about right. On the plus side, we found Lugh, so that’s one thing off our list.”
Cameron scratched his chin, too, then nodded as well. “That’ll totally make up for losing Earth and the Otherworld.”
Badb smiled at him and shrugged. “It kinda does, actually.”
“Reindeer,” Cameron warned her.
“Selena,” Badb warned back.
“Stop sending her to Ellesmere Island,” Selena ordered.
“I hate you,” he reminded Badb.
“No, you don’t,” she reminded him back.
“Stone of Fal,” Nemain reminded them all again.
“Besides,” Badb added. “Your list left off finding our traitor, who obviously recruited help from among our family since Cian said he was murdered by Irish gods. I’m killing that bastard myself.”
“Bastards,” Cameron corrected. “Since you just pointed out there has to be more than one.”
“Cameron,” Selena sighed.
“Any chance you bought that duct tape yet?” London asked.
“There’s gotta be a store around here somewhere,” she mumbled.
Cameron flashed her a mischievous grin and said, “This is sounding kinda kinky.”
“I’ll smite you,” Selena teased.
“Really kinky,” Cameron said.
“Why did I agree to help?” Ukko groaned.
Macha shook her head. “Good question. Is Anita forcing you to be here?”
“Dumbass actually volunteered,” Cameron answered before Ukko could.
“This is my punishment for chasing Selena, isn’t it?” Ukko asked.
“Could be worse,” Cameron offered. “I was trying to kill you for a while.”
“How would that be worse than this?” Ukko retorted.
Cameron pretended to think about it then agreed. “Conceded.”
“Stone of Fal!” Nemain shouted.
Ares snickered and leaned his spear against the hotel room’s wall. “I doubt it’s in New Orleans, Gatekeeper.”
“Don’t you start with that too,” she demanded.
“So I suggest we get our hands on one of these gods and force them to tell us where—” Ares continued, but Cameron interrupted him.
“Still not cool with torture.”
Ukko shrugged. “I’ll do it.”
“Dude!”
Ukko slowly smiled at him and said, “Dude. I’m joking.”
“Um…” Selena stammered, pulling an old newspaper that had been left in the room toward her. “Where is this?”
Cameron glanced at the front page of The Times-Picayune, but the only thing that seemed noteworthy about it was the age of the newspaper. “Jackson Square. Where did you even find this paper?”
“I think it was left in here,” London said. “And it’s from earlier this year. So the better question is: Why would someone have left an eight-month-old newspaper in a hotel room?”
“Seriously,” Badb added. “If that’s how badly they clean out rooms, I’m having second thoughts about sitting on this bed.”
“Are you all done?” Selena asked.
“Not yet,” Tyr added. “Who the hell reads newspapers anymore?”
Selena blinked at him so he lifted his good hand and flicked his wrist. “You may continue.”
“Next person to interrupt me gets smote,” she warned.
Instead of speaking, Cameron raised his hand so Selena squinted at him and snapped, “Yes, that includes you!”
He let his hand fall, but she watched him suspiciously for a few seconds before lifting the newspaper. “I don’t know why someone left this here, but they also left a copy of Catch-22 so maybe they’ve just got a thing for antiques. And Cameron, I swear to God, if you make a smartass remark about how Lugh obviously has a thing for antiques, too, I’m sending you back to Murias.”
Cameron bit his lip and whimpered because he had wanted to make that joke about Badb plus he couldn’t ask her which god she was swearing to. She rolled her eyes and took pity on him. “You, love. Obviously.”
This not being able to speak thing could be one of two things in the universe capable of killing him, and the other one was the girlfriend refusing to allow him to speak.
“And the church behind Jackson’s statue?” she asked him. “How long has it been there?”
Since she’d forbidden him to speak, he wasn’t sure if that was rhetorical or not.
“You aren’t going to send me home if I answer you, right?” he asked cautiously.
“Please tell us you are,” London begged.
“She didn’t give you permission to speak,” Cameron pointed out.
“Are we done with the not-speaking thing?” Thor asked.
“God, I hope not,” Loki muttered.
“You’re still not allowed to talk,” Cameron told him.
“Cameron!” Selena hissed. “The church.”
He lifted a shoulder at her and pointed to the paper. “It’s the St. Louis Cathedral. And I’m not sure how old it is... early eighteenth century maybe? But I’m pretty sure one of our relics isn’t in a Catholic church.”
“Why?” Badb asked Selena. “What’s the sudden interest in that cathedral?”
“I’m not sure,” Selena murmured. Her finger traced over the black and white image of Jackson on his horse, the statue mounted on a white pedestal with the St. Louis Cathedral silhouetted in the background. “It just made me think about hiding in plain sight. Or worse, how easy it would have been for Perun to bring the Stone of Fal somewhere like this part of the world where few buildings had been erected, and now, it’s beneath that landmark or building. And it made me realize just how impossible this might be for us.”
Cameron knelt in front of her and took her hand in his. “Hanna has her own destiny to fulfill. If there’s one thing I’m starting to believe, it’s that Fate has big plans for her, and if necessary, Fate itself will lead us to the Stone.”
“Ah,” Loki said, “that, at least, explains how you found the Unbreakable Sword.”
“Hey,” Cameron snapped, “we found the Sword by invading that totally lame version of Asgard beneath Lake Waco.”
“Still don’t appreciate that,” Thor interjected. “You destroyed my room.”
“You stole our Sword!” Cameron exclaimed.
Thor just shrugged. “You stole Mjölnir so we’re kinda even.”
Cameron squinted at him but Selena warned them, once again, to knock it off. “What would happen if the Stone of Fal were carved?” she asked, running her fingers along the picture of Jackson’s statue again.
“Carved?” Badb repeated. “Like someone defiled our Treasure?”
“Not yours,” Cameron pointed out. “The Nemedians.”
“Duct tape,” Badb begged Selena.
“What would happen to it?” Selena repeated. “Do you think it would still… work?”
“I don’t know,” Badb admitted. “But the chances of someone finding this stone and deciding to turn it into a sculpture are extremely slim, Selena.”
“Yeah,” she agreed.
Ukko glanced at the newspaper and shrugged. “Maybe not that slim. If Perun were trying to hide it so the Irish could never find it again, transforming its appearance would make sense. Hard to find something you don’t even recognize.”
“Great,” Nemain sighed. “So now we have to search the entire world for something that looks different than we expect.”
“I think our chance at finding it will be to do exactly as Ukko suggested,” London offered. “We need to question the gods who might know where it is.”
“I’m not going to let you torture people,” Cameron told her.
“We don’t have to torture them,” London argued. “These are gods who are selling out their own pantheons and old allies. They each want something. All we have to do is figure out what we can offer them that we don’t mind losing.”
Cameron ran his fingers through his hair and
glanced at Badb. “I’ve got nothing. The whole reason we’re fighting them is over control of the Earth or the Otherworld. What could we possibly offer?”
Badb shrugged, but Ukko grunted at him and shook his head. “You suffer from a terrible lack of imagination.”
“It’s not like you have any ideas,” Cameron shot back.
“Actually,” he argued, “I do. I suspect so many gods are helping Huitzilopochtli because he’s lied to them. They’ve been promised worlds he has no intention of sharing. Once we kill Huitzilopochtli, the Seventh Heaven will be theirs for the taking.”
“So we promise them a world we have no control over,” Thor said. “I’d never accept this deal.”
“You wouldn’t,” Ukko agreed. “Even before the Tuatha Dé opened Falias for you, there were enough Norse left to remain a powerful pantheon. But the gods helping the Aztecs now are weak. They have fewer options.”
“And we’re just going to let them become strong again by giving them the Seventh Heaven?” Selena asked. “Ukko, are you forgetting Hanna’s fate?”
Ukko waved her off and insisted, “Of course not. But it’ll eventually happen anyway. Gods crave power, and as long as they live, they’ll attempt to regain theirs. But don’t you remember why the New Pantheon was formed in the first place?”
“Yeah,” Cameron answered. “That’s how you made yourself so powerful again.”
“And I may have left out that detail when I was first approached by the U.S. government,” Ukko added. “I didn’t tell anyone that the more followers I amassed, the stronger I’d become. It’s likely the government still hasn’t made that connection, and with Jasper being a demigod, once he retires, they could replace him with any one of these gods who are as desperate as I once was to get some of my former glory back.”
Cameron and Selena exchanged nervous glances because the world their daughter would inherit could become a far more dangerous world than they’d feared, even if they succeeded against Huitzilopochtli. “So what do we do?” Selena asked.
Ukko arched an eyebrow at her and smiled. “We promise them the Seventh Heaven then once we get them there, we slam the veil closed so they can never return.”
EVEN IN THE early morning hours with the sun chasing away the shadows of the night, New Orleans felt eerily haunted. Its empty streets and sidewalks angered and saddened the young sun god who’d grown up so close to this city. Some of the stores’ windows were still shattered from the looting that had plagued New Orleans just as much as the smallpox outbreak had.
“What the hell are you doing here?” a man’s voice called out to them.
He and Selena spun around and his first instinct to produce his Spear was quickly replaced by curiosity. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked back.
The man only held a cellphone in his hand, and he wasn’t dressed in fatigues. He most likely wasn’t with the National Guard, which had been tasked with keeping civilians out of the city. “Essential personnel,” he answered. “But you don’t work for the Audobon Institute.”
Cameron snickered and retorted, “Zookeepers are essential personnel?”
“What are they supposed to do?” Selena responded before the man could explain. “Let all of those animals die?”
“Aquarium, actually,” the man corrected. “And some of us did have to stay behind for just that reason.” His hazel eyes continued to flicker between Cameron and Selena, and his fingers twitched around his phone.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” Cameron promised him. “Wasn’t Austin on the news?”
The man lifted a shoulder at him but he watched the young god warily. “The survivors told everyone they’d been rescued by a group of gods, but everywhere your kind shows up, disaster follows.”
“To be fair,” Selena said, “gods have been around as long as humans have, and most of the time, we haven’t been the ones causing so much trouble. People do that well enough on their own.”
“Look,” Cameron sighed, “you can report us if you want, but we’re not leaving. Selena and I were both born in this world, and right now, the entire Earth is in danger. Ever heard of Ragnarok?”
The man rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “Can’t you gods read minds or something? Of course I know what Ragnarok is.”
“Uh… no. Most of us can’t. I can start a fire if you’d like though,” Cameron offered.
“Big deal,” he countered. “So can I.”
Thor appeared on the street beside Cameron, dragging Loki behind him, and bit off his greeting when he noticed the human standing by the corner of the closed convenience store. Cameron grimaced before Loki could even speak, but the trickster god didn’t waste time gaping at the human.
“Oh, look,” he cooed. “The sun god has found a plaything.”
“Perv,” Cameron mumbled.
“Shut it, Loki,” Thor warned.
“Loki?” the man repeated. “Shouldn’t you be in a cave?”
Cameron snorted so Selena slapped his arm. Loki lifted his chin into the air and sniffed at the man. “That cave no longer exists.”
“Who is this guy?” Thor asked.
Cameron shrugged. “Not sure. An aquarium employee. Oddly enough, neither Selena nor I sensed him around here though. We thought we were still alone then he just shows up.”
“I didn’t just show up,” the man corrected. “I was walking down Chartres and heard you both talking so came to check it out.”
“Wait,” Thor said. “You were nearby the whole time?”
The man’s eyebrows pulled together and he nodded. “Yeah, of course. How else could I have gotten here?”
“But…” Selena stammered. “We couldn’t tell. We should have been able to tell we weren’t alone.”
Thor pulled Loki in front of him and shoved him toward Cameron. “Is this one of your tricks?” he demanded.
“How could I possibly deceive these two?” Loki protested. “If it were just you…”
“Dude,” Cameron warned. “I am this close to smiting you.”
“Well, clearly, something is interfering with your supernatural abilities,” Loki responded smugly.
Cameron was often only joking about kicking someone’s ass, but Loki seemed to bring out that desire in him—and everyone else. Before Selena could reprimand him, he punched Loki and felt the bones in his cheekbone and nose shatter. As the trickster god fell to the ground, moaning in pain and bleeding all over the sidewalk, Thor just stepped over him and called down to him, “Should have kept your mouth shut.”
“You know I have to heal him again,” Selena sighed.
“Actually, you don’t,” Cameron countered. “Let him suffer for a while. After everything he’s pulled, he deserves it.”
“Maybe,” Selena agreed. “But it’s not helping this guy trust us, and I’d rather he not contact the National Guard.”
“It’s Loki,” the man said. “Pretty sure he had it coming.”
“I like him,” Thor decided.
“And the name is Kevin,” he added. “I have to admit: I’ve lived in New Orleans for two decades now and I’ve seen some pretty weird shit but nothing compared to the last twenty-four hours.”
“Twenty-four hours?” Selena asked. She glanced at Cameron because they’d only been in the city for twelve.
“Yeah,” Kevin said. “I mean, except for Loki, you gods seem all right, but the ones who arrived yesterday? I just hope you’ve come to send them back to wherever the hell they belong.”
“What gods?” Cameron asked. “What did they look like?”
Kevin shrugged and let his arms fall by his sides. “A guy, not much older than you. Wouldn’t have known he was a god except for the… demons he had with him.”
“Demons,” Selena whispered.
“Oh God,” Cameron groaned.
Selena nodded and yanked Loki to his feet, healing him despite their belief Loki had deserved to suffer a little for being such an annoying asshole. But suddenly, he was no longer their
biggest problem in New Orleans.
“Kevin, you need to stay with us,” she advised. “Because those weren’t demons. They’re the same spirits that nearly killed half of Austin. And we need to figure out what the hell Nergal is doing in New Orleans.”
CHAPTER THREE
London stepped out of a bar on Bourbon Street, sipping through a straw on a tall plastic cup, and Selena put her hands on her hips and shouted, “Really?” at her so London just shrugged.
“When in Rome,” she said.
Badb took the cup from her and peeked inside then tried it. “Can I get one?”
“No!” Selena exclaimed. “Nergal and his spirits are in the city, and we need to find them!”
“Why?” Badb asked, but she eyed London’s cup again like she were still more concerned about finding her own drink than fighting their enemies. “There’s no one left in the city for him to kill.”
Cameron grabbed Kevin’s arm and pulled him toward the war goddess. “Does he look like a god to you?”
Badb looked him over quickly then shrugged. “Okay. So there’s one guy left in the city for him to kill.”
“I don’t think I like her very much,” Kevin supplied helpfully.
“Nobody likes her very much,” Cameron supplied just as helpfully.
Badb tilted her head at him and asked, “What do you mean you couldn’t sense this mortal?”
Cameron dropped Kevin’s arm and yelled, “Stay out of my head, Crow!”
“Selena?” Badb asked.
“Neither of us knew he was nearby,” she explained. “No matter how distracted we were, we should have sensed him.”
“Yeah,” Badb agreed. “But Cameron, I went digging around your head because I hadn’t realized he was human either.”
Even London’s slurping stopped as she lifted her head and gaped at the Irish war goddess. “What the hell?” she murmured. “I can’t sense his nature either.”
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