Goddesses of War (The Guardians of Tara Book 4)

by S. M. Schmitz

  “So get your boyfriend down here to break the enchantment,” Cameron suggested.

  “Don’t think it works that way,” Thor argued. “My father could only be broken out of your glass prison by a member of the Tuatha Dé.”

  “Bastards,” Badb interjected.

  Thor sighed in her direction then continued. “So I suspect this enchantment can only be broken by Koschei himself.”

  “Are you kidding me?” London complained. “And no one thought of this potential complication before we came here and dug up half the island?”

  “Maybe we can hold his soul hostage,” Cameron suggested.

  “If we can’t open the box, I doubt he’ll be worried about negotiating with us to get it back,” Selena countered.

  “Now what?” London asked.

  Cameron handed the enchanted vessel to Badb and told her, “Take it to Lugh. See if he can figure out how this thing works. Apparently, the rest of us have to walk into yet another trap in New Orleans.”

  “Selena’s not going to that restaurant without me,” Badb argued.

  “Right, because we did such a great job of protecting her last time we walked into a trap in New Orleans,” Cameron snapped.

  “At least they let her live,” Badb snapped back.

  “Would you both shut up?” Selena shouted. “We have to open that box, so take it to Lugh then come meet us. And I want all of the Guardians there.”

  Badb scowled at the bronze box in her hands but relented. “Any chance you’re sticking with us, Ahura Mazda?”

  “Indirectly,” he answered. “I’m going to try to find Ahriman and get him back into Basri. I had no idea Ragnarok had been triggered. If I’d known, I could have predicted his escape and prevented it.”

  Cameron blinked at him then rubbed his forehead. “I don’t think that makes sense, but I’m so tired, it does.”

  Selena grabbed his hand and smiled up at him. “Po-boys, love.”

  “No one left in New Orleans to make them,” he reminded her. “And if I have to make it myself, I might as well go back to Murias.”

  “I guess I know where to find you if I get my hands on Ahriman,” Ahura Mazda said.

  “I don’t like him very much,” Cameron replied. “You should totally think about smiting him.”

  “If you’d let us smite him six hundred years ago, we wouldn’t have another escaped convict to deal with now,” Badb pointed out.

  “New Orleans,” Selena sighed.

  “I’ll round up the others,” London offered. “Although we should decide what we’re going to do about that human.”

  “Kevin?” Cameron asked. He pretended to think about it then said, “If I were human and stuck in a city that had been evacuated after a supernatural plague, I’d definitely want to stick around a bunch of gods just because they said I had to. Presumably, the Aquarium is unguarded now. We should totally go free the parrots.”

  “From now on, I’m acting like you can’t speak,” London responded.

  “That’ll never work,” Cameron claimed. “Never worked on my parents, and they had years of practice.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever felt more sorry for two people…” London muttered.

  Selena narrowed her eyes at the young goddess, but Cameron squeezed her hand before she could smite anyone. “We’ll bring him back to the Aquarium and advise him not to leave until this is over,” he said. “Badb, find out if Lugh knows anything else about the box or the other souls because I doubt they’re all in here. Tyr, grab Loki because we’ll need to rebind him as soon as Huitzilopochtli is no longer a threat to him, or nothing we do is going to matter. Am I missing anything?”

  Selena stood up straighter and grabbed his other arm, exclaiming, “I know how we can prevent Ragnarok!”

  “Um… rebinding Loki?” Cameron guessed.

  Selena shook her head. “You’ve stopped time twice now. How can the world possibly be destroyed if it’s frozen?”

  “Selena,” he sighed, “I don’t know how I did that, and even if I did, I’m not sure I can just hold it indefinitely. I panicked, and as soon as the panic subsided, everything just fell back into place like it should be.”

  “Try getting panicked about the end of the world then,” Tyr suggested.

  Cameron blinked at him then glanced at Badb. “Come find us in New Orleans.”

  Before any of the gods could argue with him, he and Selena returned to New Orleans where they brought an extremely relieved human back to his post at the city’s aquarium then waited on the sidewalk in front of a closed restaurant. With Koschei still disrupting the supernatural order, neither of them could sense whether or not they were alone here.

  Thor appeared on the street, in front of them, dragging a reluctant and always defiant Loki behind him. “I really hope Lugh can get that box open,” Thor sighed.

  Cameron nodded in agreement as Nemain and Macha joined them, and Nemain shot him a mischievous grin and asked, “Rematch?”

  “Never going to happen,” Cameron replied.

  “You’re a sore loser.”

  “You have an unnaturally high metabolism.”

  Nemain glanced at Macha and asked, “What am I supposed to say to that?”

  Macha snickered and pulled on the restaurant door, but it didn’t open. Not surprisingly, the entire city had been locked down.

  “Maybe we should wait until everyone else arrives,” Thor suggested. “If there are a bunch of truly immortal gods in there, I want all the backup we can get.”

  Macha lifted a shoulder. “We have Cameron.”

  “Don’t feed his ego,” Nemain groaned. “He’s already insufferable.”

  “Ignore her,” Athena instructed. “You already know we love you, even when you’re annoying the hell out of us.”

  “So all of the time?” Cameron asked.

  “Yes,” London immediately agreed.

  “No,” Ares immediately disagreed.

  “What’s taking Badb so long?” Selena complained. “She’d better not be fooling around with Lugh.”

  “Lobotomy,” Cameron threatened.

  “Please find a cave to rebind me in,” Loki begged.

  “We’re working on that,” Tyr assured him. “But we can’t let Huitzilopochtli find you because if you’re killed, we can’t prevent Ragnarok. Trust me: We’re just as anxious to get rid of you as you are to be rid of us.”

  “Oh, I’m sure,” Loki sang back to him.

  “Why do you let him talk?” Cameron asked Thor.

  “How can I make him shut up?” Thor shot back.

  “Duct tape, broken jaw—” Cameron started, but Selena interrupted him.

  “We’re not breaking his jaw.”

  “I honestly do like your healer,” Loki interjected.

  Cameron pointed at him and threatened, “I’ll break your jaw anyway if you don’t shut up.”

  “Cameron,” Selena sighed.

  Badb finally appeared among them and squinted at Loki before turning to the dark, locked restaurant. “Lugh’s working on a way to break the enchantment. We may not need Koschei himself to open the box though. Just as our own glass prison could be opened by any member of the Tuatha Dé, any Slavic god may be able to open this box.”

  “We’re not exactly friends with any Slavic gods,” Cameron argued.

  “You’re not,” Ukko said, “but I am.”

  Cameron jumped at the sound of his voice and spun around to face him. “Okay, I kinda totally forgot you were on Team Guardians now.”

  Ukko rolled his eyes and said, “I’ve already asked Jasper to get in touch with all of the Slavic gods on the New Pantheon’s payroll. Opening Koschei’s box won’t be as easy as opening a prison since he’d want to protect his soul far more than even the most dangerous imprisoned god. And Koschei himself had many enemies among his own pantheon.”

  “He wouldn’t have hidden it if it couldn’t be opened though,” Selena argued.

  Ukko shrugged and gestured toward the r
estaurant. “Why are we here?”

  Cameron pulled the note from his pocket and held it between two fingers to show Ukko. “Because we like walking into traps. Keeps things interesting.”

  Ukko grunted at him and snatched the piece of paper out of his hand. “Where did you find this?”

  “Ailill’s palace,” Cameron explained. “It was obviously left there for us to find, but since we have no other leads, what else are we supposed to do?”

  “Not let them kill us,” Ukko countered.

  “I just unlocked the door,” Selena said. “And I’m going in, whether you stay out here arguing or not.”

  “This is a bad idea,” Ukko mumbled.

  “Probably,” Cameron agreed, but he followed Selena inside anyway.

  The restaurant felt as empty as it looked, but Cameron suspected it wasn’t nearly as abandoned as they thought. They’d been led here for a reason. As the rest of the Guardians shuffled in behind him, a light flickered on overhead and the door slammed closed, trapping them inside. All around him, he heard the sounds of gods drawing their weapons and his own Spear appeared in his hand. Footsteps in the back of the restaurant made him pull Selena farther into the circle of gods that had formed around her, but she held onto his free hand. She wouldn’t be separated from him again.

  An unfamiliar goddess finally emerged from the kitchen doorway, her gaze settling on Athena. “I suppose I should thank you.”

  “Mnemosyne,” Athena hissed. “I freed you. You’ve allied yourself with the wrong side, Titan.”

  “And I should trust the Olympians and Tuatha Dé instead?” she asked.

  “To be fair,” Badb interjected, “only the Dagda is old enough to have helped the Olympians in your war. And if we can become allies with the Norse, there’s no reason you and the Olympians can’t get over your pasts.”

  “Do you even know how long I was imprisoned?” Mnemosyne yelled.

  “You made me forget a promise I’d made to Ailill,” Cameron said. “You basically tried to kill me. You know I’ve gotta smite you now.”

  Mnemosyne scoffed and waved him off. “You got lucky, Sun God. Either Fate inexplicably took pity on you, or the geis is going to manifest in a different way. I’m betting on the latter.”

  “Where’s Ailill?” Badb asked before Cameron could smite the Greek goddess.

  Mnemosyne smiled at her and tilted her head. “Who? And what are you doing here, Morrigan? Shouldn’t you be in Murias?”

  “Okay, I’m smiting her. She’s pissing me off,” Cameron decided.

  Badb lowered her sword and looked around the restaurant then blinked at the young sun god. “What are we doing here?”

  “Badb, please tell me you’re just messing with me,” Cameron begged.

  “About what?”

  “Oh my God,” Selena groaned.

  The other Guardians lowered their weapons as well, their eyebrows pulling together in confusion as they each tried to remember why they were in a closed restaurant and not at home. Mnemosyne took a step closer to the young sun god and said, “Shouldn’t you be going home as well?”

  “No,” Cameron snapped, “I should be killing you.”

  Mnemosyne’s eyes widened and she sucked in a quick breath. “How?”

  Instead of explaining how he retained his memories, he lifted his Spear, but the Titan disappeared before he could throw it, so he sighed and complained, “I hate it when they do that.”

  “Cameron,” Selena said nervously, “all of our friends can’t remember who we’re looking for or why. What are we going to do?”

  “Who are we looking for?” Badb asked.

  “First of all,” Cameron said to Selena, “you said ‘Oh my God’ a minute ago and I didn’t have a chance to ask which god, but I’m assuming you meant Mnemosyne.”

  “Obviously,” Selena replied.

  “And secondly, maybe killing Mnemosyne will restore their memories.”

  “Memories about what?” Thor asked impatiently.

  “Huitzilopochtli, Koschei, and a bunch of asshole gods we’ve been fighting for several months now,” Cameron explained.

  “All right,” Thor said slowly. “Why is it taking this group so long to kill a few gods? And why the hell is Loki with us?”

  “Oh yeah,” Cameron sighed. “We’ve definitely got to get their memories back.”

  “How were we able to keep her out of our heads?” Selena asked.

  Cameron shrugged, but London stepped away from them all, her eyes fixed on one god. “Ukko, did you send me here? And why?”

  “Oh, come on!” Cameron exclaimed. “This is beyond cheating. Mnemosyne just got moved to the top of my to-be-smote list.”

  Ukko licked his lips as he looked around the restaurant one last time. “Anita… I promised her I’d never leave Findias again, and I broke my promise. What if she doesn’t forgive me?”

  “Dude,” Cameron started, but Ukko disappeared before he could explain that Anita had been the one who convinced him to help the Guardians of Tara.

  “So… I’m guessing Mnemosyne left the note in Ailill’s palace,” Cameron said smartly.

  “This has to violate some rule of warfare,” Selena said. “We should return to Findias and ask Lugh.”

  “Can I remind you yet that I thought this was a terrible idea?”

  “No, you can never remind me that you were right.”

  Cameron nodded and told her, “Sounds totally fair.”

  Their friends shifted their weight between feet as they waited for some kind of instruction as to what they were supposed to do now, but neither Cameron nor Selena had any clue. “Badb,” Cameron said, “you do remember that Lugh was rescued from Hel, right?”

  “Of course, and I’ll be forever grateful to you for rescuing him. But what does that have to do with anything?”

  Cameron ran his fingers through his hair and tried again, even though he’d experienced Mnemosyne’s interference with memories and knew it was impossible to break through those walls. “How do you think we found out Lugh was in Hel?”

  Badb shrugged and gestured to Thor. “Odin imprisoned him, so I’m assuming Thor told you.”

  “That’s it,” Selena said. “Findias. Now.”

  The restaurant disappeared and was replaced by the perpetual warmth of Findias. The now-familiar red palace stood before them, but instead of knocking, Selena opened the door and called for Lugh, who didn’t keep them waiting. He emerged from the library, the bronze box in his hands.

  “I haven’t had nearly enough time to figure out how to open this,” he said.

  “We’re not here about the vessel,” Selena replied. “Mnemosyne made everyone forget about Huitzilopochtli and his allies. There has to be a way to undo this because Cameron and I can’t handle this on our own.”

  Lugh sighed and looked past her. “And you, Loki? I’m assuming she left your memories intact?”

  “Naturally,” he said.

  Tyr grabbed Loki’s arm and growled, “Why is he out of his cave? And why aren’t we putting him back?”

  “He destroyed it,” Cameron answered. “And if you try to rebind him in a different cave now, Huitzilopochtli will kill him and we won’t be able to stop Ragnarok.”

  “Ragnarok,” Thor whispered. “It’s begun?”

  “Yeah,” Cameron sighed. “In fact, there was another earthquake in the Indian Ocean and there are tsunami warnings for parts of Southeast Asia. We have to kill Huitzilopochtli soon so we can get Loki back in a cave to fulfill the terms of his imprisonment and prevent Ragnarok from going full-on apocalypse.”

  “Okay, so Mnemosyne stole some of our memories,” Macha said. “But we can still help you find Huitzilopochtli and kill him. We don’t need to remember everything that’s going on. We trust you completely.”

  Cameron shook his head. “It’s not about trust but helping us make decisions and figure things out. How are Selena and I supposed to do that alone? And if you don’t remember what’s worked in the past again
st certain gods or their ridiculous supply of multi-headed giant snakes, you can get killed.”

  “We take that chance every time we go into battle,” Badb argued. “With or without all our memories.”

  Cameron shook his head again and glanced at Lugh. “Can we fix this or not?”

  “Afraid not,” Lugh responded. “Mnemosyne forms these mental prisons and isolates certain memories. I don’t even know of another god that can do that.”

  “Think you can give us some good news for a change?” Cameron complained.

  Lugh offered him a sympathetic smile then his eyes lit up and he grabbed his heir’s arm. “I have an idea.”

  “Kill Mnemosyne?”

  “No, Lethe.”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Selena muttered.

  “Um… please tell me you’re not about to send me to another underworld,” Cameron begged.

  “Do you really want all of your friends to go alone?” Lugh asked. “Besides, Hades is a realm of our oldest friends and allies. This is nothing like having to venture into Hel.”

  “I don’t get it,” Athena said. “Lethe is supposed to make us forget things too. How is it supposed to restore our memories?”

  “And it’s a river,” Ares added. “It’s not like we can reason with it and ask it to help.”

  “Hades can control it,” Lugh explained. “And if he can reverse its flow, maybe it will reverse memory loss. Tell them it can work.”

  “Are you seriously asking me to tell everyone—” Cameron started, but someone interrupted him.

  “Pretty sure he meant me.”

  The unexpected and unfamiliar voice startled him, and he turned to face the god who’d joined their group in Uscias’s foyer. Cameron quickly looked him over, assuming he had to be Hades but oddly disappointed he looked nothing like the cartoon caricature he’d had in mind. Like most gods he’d met, he seemed completely normal, so Cameron crossed his arms and shot a fake scowl at him. “You’re getting a bell too.”

  “I’m getting a what?” Hades shot back.

  “Don’t ask,” Lugh sighed.

  “This is seriously the god that has everyone so excited?”

  “Disappointing, isn’t it?” Cameron joked.