“Can you please stop talking?” Lugh begged.
“You know he can’t,” Badb said.
“I forgot to buy duct tape,” Selena sighed.
“For whom?” Lugh asked. “Cameron or Badb?”
“Hey!” Badb protested.
“Both,” Selena replied.
Lugh smiled sheepishly at Badb and gestured to one of the books. “Fortunately, the Greeks frequently encountered the Slavs and recorded their experiences, which meant I could look at bodies of water where the Greeks and Slavs both often traveled.”
“The Black Sea?” Cameron guessed.
Lugh arched an eyebrow at him, so Cameron snapped, “I’m annoying, not an idiot.”
“Cameron,” Selena warned, “I will get the duct tape.”
“No,” Lugh told her. “I want to hear his reaction when I tell him where he needs to go look for Koschei’s soul.”
“Um,” Cameron stammered, “isn’t tracking the Gatekeeper’s thing?”
“Not this time, Sun God. If I’m right, I’m pretty sure it’s your destiny or something.”
“Selena,” Cameron groaned. “I’m going back to Murias.”
Selena grabbed his hand to keep him in the library and asked Lugh, “So where is it?”
Lugh flashed an impish grin at Cameron and said, “You need to investigate Snake Island.”
“Nope,” Cameron responded. “I’m out.”
Badb laughed and shook her head. “You’re right, Lugh. I’m pretty sure this is his destiny.”
“Keep laughing, Crow. You’re coming with me,” Cameron told her.
Badb put her hands on her hips and glanced at Selena. “Help?”
“There probably aren’t more snakes on this island than normal… right?” Selena guessed.
Cameron shuddered then pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Hold on. I’ll check Wikipedia.”
“Get Thor,” Lugh instructed. “It shouldn’t take you Guardians that long to search the island. It’s fairly small and sparsely populated.”
“By people or snakes?” Cameron asked hopefully.
“Destiny,” Lugh answered cryptically.
“I hate you,” Cameron reminded him.
“No, you don’t,” Lugh reminded him back.
“I can’t die on an island called Snake Island,” Cameron complained. “I’m Irish… that’s gotta be in that missing rule book.”
“If we don’t actually go to Snake Island and find Koschei’s soul, everyone is going to die,” Selena countered.
Cameron sighed and scowled in Lugh’s direction. “Any chance you’ve also figured out why I can’t summon Huitzilopochtli? Because if I could just kill that bastard, we wouldn’t have to dig all over an island named after snakes.”
“Do you ever do anything for yourself?” Lugh teased.
Cameron shrugged. “I got Selena pregnant all by myself.”
“Um… even among gods, it doesn’t work that way,” Badb retorted. “Pretty sure she was involved.”
“Oh,” Cameron said. “Then no.”
“You know what?” Selena decided. “I’ll check it out alone.”
“Did she seriously just leave us in Findias?” Badb asked.
“Yep,” Cameron said. “One of these days, she really is going to run away to Hawaii.”
“I’m really kind of surprised she hasn’t already,” Badb agreed.
“I’m really kind of surprised you both haven’t gone after her yet,” Lugh added.
Cameron squinted at him but pulled Thor and Badb with him to Snake Island, which mercifully, didn’t have any visible snakes where Selena was waiting for them. Thor looked around then blinked at the young sun god. “Where the hell are we?”
“Snake Island,” Cameron told him.
“I’m not even asking why,” Thor said. “Just let me go home.”
“No way. If I have to be here, so do you.”
“But why? What could possibly be here that’s worth encountering multiple snakes, or worse, multiple giant snakes?”
“Koschei’s soul… maybe,” Cameron told him. “But Selena, if it’s guarded by giant mythological snakes, Thor and I are both leaving.”
“Any chance one of you brought a shovel?” Selena asked.
“You really think it’s buried?” Badb replied.
“It’s in an enchanted vessel of some kind,” Selena explained. “And thousands of years ago, there were no buildings on this island. Where else could he have put it?”
Cameron gestured to a lighthouse on the edge of the island and offered, “What about there?”
“Cameron,” Badb sighed. “That lighthouse is—”
“I read the Wikipedia page,” Cameron interrupted. “That lighthouse is built on the remains of a Greek temple dedicated to Achilles. What better way to hide your soul from your enemy than in your enemy’s house?”
“Um,” Thor said, “I can think of about a thousand better ways.”
“It’s worth looking,” Selena argued.
“Not if it’s guarded by monster-snakes,” Badb muttered.
“Why is London here?” Cameron asked before the young goddess could appear.
She materialized in front of him and crossed her arms over her chest. “Why are you still standing around rather than looking for Koschei’s soul?”
“Because if we go looking for Koschei’s soul, we might find snakes, and we were waiting for you to show up so you can do it,” Cameron said as if she really should have figured that out already.
London grunted at him then glanced over her shoulder at the lighthouse. “Where exactly was this temple? If it’s beneath the lighthouse, we won’t be able to dig around for it.”
“I could throw a rock from one side of this island to the other,” Cameron said. “Even before I was a god. If the perv’s soul is here, we’ll find it.”
“Good thing we can mask ourselves from humans,” Badb agreed. “Because this has to be the smallest island I’ve ever been on.”
A small group of men, most likely Ukrainian border guards, stood outside a building, pointing toward the sea and talking animatedly. None of them knew the gods had arrived on their island, but one man kept pointing to the sky so Cameron finally followed his finger to see what was so fascinating.
And he didn’t find the sky fascinating at all.
“You have got to be kidding me,” he muttered.
The other gods groaned, and Badb even stamped her foot. “I am not getting kidnapped by those assholes again!”
Nergal’s spirits, rippling through the baby’s breath blue sky, dove toward the island, and Cameron immediately stepped in front of Selena. She couldn’t be kidnapped again either. He didn’t think he could survive it.
“What do we do?” London asked, her voice strangely calm for a goddess who was about to battle spirits that could weaken even the strongest gods in the world.
“Trap them,” Selena breathed. “We have to trap them.”
“How?” Cameron asked.
A wooden box fell at their feet, and Badb spun around, her gray eyes wide and terrified. “Lugh!” she screamed. “Get out of here!”
“It’s ash,” Lugh explained. “And it’s enchanted. We’ve done this before, Badb. And it worked. Cameron, pick it up and pull the lid off.”
Cameron obeyed, but he didn’t have time to force his ancestor back to Findias. Nergal’s spirits had arrived.
Badb drew her sword, standing just as protectively in front of Lugh as Cameron stood in front of Selena. But a sword was useless against spirits.
“Is there like… an incantation or something?” Cameron asked.
“No,” Lugh answered. “This isn’t an exorcism.”
“Well, how the hell should I know how this works?” Cameron exclaimed.
“It’s already enchanted, and they know it. Why do you think they’ve stopped and are waiting at the edge of the island?”
“Then how do we get them in the wooden prison?”
“You can�
��t touch a spirit with weapons, but they can be moved. And one of you can move objects with her mind.”
“I’m supposed to force a bunch of spirits into an ash box?” Selena cried.
“I don’t think they’re going to volunteer,” Lugh replied smartly.
“You get back to Findias,” Badb scolded then turned to Selena and added, “We don’t have a better plan. See if you can get Nergal in there too. He’s been a pain in the ass for centuries.”
Selena blinked at her then snapped, “You get a god into a tiny box.”
“Think you can hurry this up?” Lugh asked. “You still need to find Koschei’s soul, and it’s possible each god who’s working with him hid his soul somewhere else.”
“Wait,” Cameron said. “I thought they’d all be together in some creepy soul-vault?”
Lugh shrugged and continued to watch the spirits in the sky that hovered above them. “If I were hiding gods’ souls so they could be immortal, I wouldn’t keep them together. That’s just bad strategy.”
“Would you get your stubborn ass back to Findias?” Badb hissed.
Lugh finally looked away from the spirits in the sky to squint at his girlfriend. “Fine. But you owe me because I really wanted to see this.”
Badb shot him a look that Cameron interpreted as, “You owe me for not going with you to kick your ass,” and apparently, Lugh interpreted it that way too because he disappeared.
“Okay,” Selena murmured. “This can’t be that hard. Kinda like reining in those hummingbirds, right?”
“Um…” Cameron responded. “What are we supposed to do if we get them in the box? Is this like that whole Pandora thing?”
London snorted and nudged the box with her foot to move it away from them. “I always thought boxes filled with evil should be destroyed. Prevents dumbasses like Pandora from opening them in the first place.”
Cameron nodded smartly and said, “I’ll torch it.”
Selena bit her lip as she concentrated on forcing the spirits into the box. The misty black shapes stretched and pulled as they fought her, but they also dipped lower as she dragged them toward the island. Cameron glanced at the small cluster of humans who’d gotten louder, shouting and pointing at the strange phantoms descending on Snake Island.
“Maybe someone should tell them to get inside in case this doesn’t work,” Cameron suggested.
“I’ll go,” London offered. “But what am I supposed to do if they don’t speak English?”
“Um… I doubt they speak old Norse, ancient Greek, or Gaelic, so we’re probably all useless then,” Thor replied.
“For God’s sake, you’re gods,” Selena snapped. “Just force them inside!”
“I’d ask which god,” Cameron said, “but I’m worried you might smite me.”
“We’ve all been waiting for that,” London responded helpfully.
“Can I borrow your phone so I can record it?” Thor asked just as helpfully.
“I hate you both,” Cameron lied.
“Humans,” Badb sighed.
London vanished in a blur of white, and Selena pulled the spirits closer to the ash box. Their amorphous shapes elongated even more as they attempted to flee, but she had them under her control now. Cameron glanced at the men again and saw London speaking to them, gesturing toward the spirits then pointing to the building. Thor watched them carefully too.
“If they give Little Goddess any trouble, I’ll push them inside myself,” he said.
“She’s grown on you, hasn’t she?” Cameron teased.
Thor smiled but kept his attention on the young goddess. “Can’t help it. She kinda reminds me of my daughter.”
But the men finally walked away from the Greek goddess and disappeared inside the building. A sickening screech from the spirits forced Cameron’s attention back to the sky. Selena had pulled them close enough to the enchanted box that it had them under its spell. They wouldn’t be able to escape now.
The misty shadows began to spiral like angry tornadoes and Cameron instinctively grabbed Selena’s arm and pulled her farther away from the ash box. The screaming and screeching grew louder as the spirits twisted and collapsed into their prison then the island fell into silence. London reappeared among them and all of the gods stared at the box, which seemed empty, but they all knew better.
Thor slowly bent down and picked up the lid then inched carefully toward Lugh’s enchanted box. He shot Cameron a nervous look as he just as slowly lowered himself toward the ground again so he could put the lid on it. It probably wasn’t necessary, but what did they know about wooden prisons? After sealing it, Thor rose and quickly returned to his friends as if the spirits would suddenly burst from the box and kill them all.
“Should I burn it now?” Cameron asked. “Is there some kind of… spell or something we should say?”
Badb shrugged. “I vote for immediate incineration.”
“I second that,” Thor agreed.
Cameron lit the ash box on fire then nodded toward the lighthouse. “Who’s getting the shovels to dig around Achilles’ Temple?”
Thor scratched his chin as he eyed the lighthouse and opened his mouth to answer the young sun god, but he didn’t have a chance to speak. They’d all sensed the arrival of another god, and her presence was not only surprising but disturbing.
Cameron and Thor had accomplished the impossible by freeing Lugh and Sigyn, and Hel had come for revenge.
CHAPTER NINE
Hel glared at the gods who had entered her realm and freed two of her prisoners, her hatred boiling over and causing the grass beneath her dangling feet to wilt and die. Her fingers curled into fists as she focused her attention on the Norse god of thunder.
“You,” she hissed, “betrayed not only me but our entire family.”
“Actually,” Thor argued, “I’m the head of our pantheon now, so…”
“You are not my leader!” she yelled. The glass in the windows of the nearby building where the mortals had been sent to hide from Nergal’s spirits shattered, causing the people inside to scream.
Cameron lifted his Spear, but the Norse goddess held up a hand, and he felt the warm metal transform then contract and wriggle in his grip. When he glanced down at his weapon, he found himself holding a serpent.
“Dude,” Cameron shouted, throwing the snake to the ground, “that’s cheating!”
Thor lifted Mjölnir to throw it at the goddess, but it also transformed in his grasp only he wasn’t holding a snake but his father’s head.
Like Cameron, he dropped it to the ground and backed away from it, his eyes wide with fear and his mouth gaping at the dismembered head of his father, Odin’s one eye, lifeless yet menacing, fixed on the son who’d turned against him in the Second Battle of the Gods.
“I burned him,” Cameron mumbled. “There’s nothing left…”
Hel moved closer, her mangled feet never touching the hard surface of the island. She tilted her head toward Badb and London and held up her hand again, but Selena gasped and said, “Pick up your Spear, Cameron.”
“Are you crazy?” Cameron asked. “It’s a snake!”
“No, it’s not,” Selena insisted. Hel turned her attention to the Irish goddess of healing instead and narrowed her eyes, her hand moving toward Selena instead. “It’s just an illusion,” she quickly added. “She’s tricking us, making us hallucinate.”
Cameron groaned as he eyed the snake slithering by his feet, but with Hel’s fury focused on Selena now, he obeyed his girlfriend and grabbed the serpent, groaning again as it hissed and thrashed in his hand. He risked peeking at Thor to see if he’d brave his greatest fear—his father—but Thor had paled and backed farther away from Odin’s head, his hands trembling and his gray eyes glassy and distant.
Badb and London screamed and dropped their weapons, but Cameron didn’t bother looking to see what their greatest fears were. He threw the snake, which Selena had insisted was still his Spear, at Hel who shrieked and disappeared before it could kil
l her. His Spear cut through the air then arced and returned to his hand, its blue flames creating a trail across the small island, but not surprisingly, Selena had been right. As soon as Hel disappeared, the snake had morphed into his Spear and Mjölnir returned to its normal appearance.
But Thor still didn’t pick it up.
The giant thunder god stared at it as if he were still seeing his dead father, whose memory clearly haunted him more than he’d ever let on.
“Thor,” Cameron said quietly, “it’s okay. It was just a trick.”
Thor didn’t answer him.
London reached for Mjölnir, but Thor grabbed her and yelled, “Don’t touch him! He’ll kill you.”
The young Greek goddess took a deep breath and put her hand over his. It seemed so small and fragile compared to the large god’s, but if London were worried about his inability to tell reality from fiction anymore, she hid it well. “I wasn’t there, but I’ve heard this story so many times, it feels as if I were. You didn’t betray him, Thor. You did everything you could to convince him not to invade the Otherworld, and you were the only god among your family to realize we aren’t your enemies anymore. That took more courage than any invasion or battle ever has.”
Thor’s attention shifted from Mjölnir to London’s hand and he took a deep breath too. “When he came back after being freed from the glass prison he was different. He was no longer my father.”
“I suppose imprisonment in a glass prison can change a god,” London offered.
Thor shook his head slowly. “It didn’t change Lugh who’d been imprisoned just as long.”
“Great,” Cameron sighed. “I guess I need to add a pissed off goddess of the dead to our list of enemies. I’m going to need a second sheet of paper.”
“Thor,” Selena said, “if you need to return to Falias for a while—”
“No,” he said, closing his eyes briefly before scooping Mjölnir from the ground. “Let’s find Koschei’s soul. We need to start scratching some of these assholes off our list.”
Cameron nodded smartly and pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket. It had started as a joke, but who was he to end it by not carrying around an actual list of gods who wanted them dead?
“Pen?” he asked no one in particular.
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