The Last Guardian of Tara (The Guardians of Tara Book 5)

by S. M. Schmitz

  The bolts slid into place, and Hanna shivered. They were trapped in Ereshkigal’s kingdom.

  But if her father ever got scared, he did a remarkably good job of hiding it. “Question,” he said.

  The Queen of the Great Below sighed in his direction.

  “Is your husband here?” Cameron asked. “If he is, I’m gonna save us all some time and kill him first.”

  “Cameron,” Thor hissed. “Not helping.”

  Cameron shrugged. “What’s the big deal? I’ve killed him twice and the bastard won’t stay dead.”

  “I am judge and jury here,” Ereshkigal said. “And I’ve decided you are each guilty of trespassing and intending harm on my world and myself. You’ll be hanged—”

  “I’ve gotta stop you right there,” Cameron interrupted. “I’d destroy every world in existence to protect my daughter, so I’m definitely not going to let some forgotten goddess of a realm nobody cares about anymore hang her.”

  “We are so going to die,” Thor mumbled.

  “Prometheus, you did have a plan for the spirits here, right?” Cameron asked as the spirits of the mortals who’d descended into the Netherworld joined their queen and the demons at the gate.

  “Um… sort of?” Prometheus replied.

  “Good enough,” Cameron told him.

  A white-hot fire erupted around Ereshkigal, causing the demons who’d surrounded her to scream, an unnatural and ear-splitting sound. The black mists broke apart, and Hanna watched the spirits of the mortals carefully to see what Prometheus intended to do since spirits in their own land of the dead were supposed to be invincible. Even she couldn’t harm them.

  The spirits stopped advancing toward the intruders, seeming confused and then panicked as one by one, they began to disappear. Hanna gasped, but Prometheus looked like he was concentrating, so she didn’t ask him how he’d accomplished the impossible. Ereshkigal glanced over her shoulder where Cameron’s fires continued to destroy her demons, and somehow, the spirits she reigned over were vanishing, so she yelled at the god who’d brashly challenged her. She lifted her hands, but whatever the Queen of the Dead had been planning, Hanna prevented by sending her careening backwards into the side of her palace.

  Ereshkigal narrowed her eyes in Hanna’s direction, but the young goddess was already by her side. Hanna knelt beside her and grabbed her arm, draining the power from her soul. “You are already a prisoner of this realm,” Hanna said. “But if you leave it now, you’ll die. I’m cursing you with mortality.”

  “No,” Ereshkigal groaned. She tried to pry her arm loose, but Hanna tightened her grip.

  “I will leave you with some of your power if you tell us where your husband’s vessel is hidden,” Hanna offered. “He needs to be banished to the Netherworld permanently so he can no longer murder innocent people.”

  “I don’t know where it is,” Ereshkigal claimed.

  Cameron’s fires extinguished, and he sighed loudly. “Don’t make me dig up your entire city. I hate digging almost as much as fighting giant snakes.”

  “I’d much rather dig,” Thor admitted.

  Cameron crossed his arms as he apparently thought about it then nodded. “Okay, it’s way better than giant snakes, but it’s still a pain in the ass when she could just tell us where we need to look.”

  “But I don’t know!” Ereshkigal insisted.

  “So you really haven’t seen Nergal with some weird box containing his soul, which he most likely hid somewhere down here?” Cameron asked.

  “Do you really think he’d tell anyone, even me, where he put the source of his immortality?” she argued.

  “She has a point,” Thor said. “Still don’t want to search her entire city, but I think we’ll have to.”

  “Ereshkigal stays with us,” Cameron told Hanna. “If she makes you suspicious for any reason, sap the rest of her power. And where the hell are all the dead people? Did you send them to Hell?”

  “Depends,” Prometheus answered. “Do you consider Alabama Hell?”

  “Yes,” Cameron immediately responded.

  Thor blinked at him then blinked at Prometheus. “Why Alabama?”

  “It was honestly the first place that popped into my mind aside from Greece, and I didn’t want all those spirits in Greece.”

  Cameron nodded in what Hanna already knew was smartass agreement. “Good call on having thousands of ghosts haunting Alabama. Any chance you can concentrate them in Tuscaloosa?”

  “Dad,” Hanna sighed, “it’s not even football season.”

  “Hey,” he countered, “I raised you better. It’s always acceptable to hate that school.”

  “How are you missing the more important point here?” Thor asked. “Prometheus somehow exiled spirits from their own land of the dead.”

  “I got that point,” Cameron corrected. “Why do you think I asked him where they were?”

  Thor threw his hands up and turned to Prometheus. “I give up. I’m apparently the only one who’s terribly curious as to how you got those spirits out of the Netherworld.”

  “I’m honestly not sure,” Prometheus admitted. “I just had this idea that it might work and went with it.”

  “Feel better now?” Cameron asked Thor.

  Thor squinted at his friend and said, “Just start digging.”

  Prometheus nodded toward the palace doors and said, “Maybe we should check inside first. Just because she’s claiming she doesn’t know where this vessel is doesn’t mean we should believe her.”

  “It would be really handy to possess telepathy right now,” Hanna agreed.

  “Do we get to raid this palace like we did the Norse’s?” Cameron asked.

  “Wasn’t alive yet, Dad,” Hanna answered.

  “Still don’t appreciate that,” Thor also answered.

  “You stole our Sword!” Cameron exclaimed.

  “Want to search it without them?” Prometheus asked Hanna.

  “Please take me with you,” Ereshkigal begged.

  “You’re not going in there with my daughter alone,” Cameron told Prometheus.

  Prometheus gaped at him then threw his hands up. “We’re in a Netherworld with a weakened goddess of the dead trailing along. What exactly do you think is going to happen?”

  “I’m pretty sure he’s only messing with you at this point,” Hanna offered. “But I’m never really sure either.”

  “Only Selena ever knows, but they have that whole psychic link, so I’m not sure that should count,” Thor added.

  “This all depends, really,” Cameron said.

  “I’m almost afraid to ask,” Prometheus replied.

  “Can you paint?”

  “Can I…” Prometheus looked between Hanna and Cameron then shook his head. “I’m going inside.”

  Cameron waved a hand toward Prometheus’s back as he headed toward the palace doors and said, “If I can’t force guys into working for me, then what’s the point in you dating?”

  Hanna snickered and pulled the goddess to her feet. “I’m kinda busy saving the world right now, so maybe you can lay off the overprotective father bit for a while.”

  “That’s not an act,” Cameron corrected. “Your mother just usually tells me to shut up before I can embarrass you.”

  “We know,” Thor hurriedly interjected. “And in moments like these, we all realize just how much we miss having her around.”

  “Am I the only one thinking we should go inside and help Prometheus?” Hanna asked.

  “What is going on there?” Cameron asked. “I’ve never seen you blush around anyone. I’m seriously not trying to be an asshole, but I don’t think I like the idea that anyone can make you feel insecure.”

  Hanna sighed and gestured toward Ereshkigal. “Not now, Dad. And I don’t feel insecure. The first time you met Mom… I mean, the first time… you knew Fate had intervened.”

  Cameron smiled at her, but apparently still couldn’t resist teasing, not that she’d expected him to. “That’s kinda
low, bringing your mother into this. Everyone knows she’s my Kryptonite.”

  “She’s the only thing that can weaken you so much you become mortal?” Thor asked.

  “I’d believe that, actually,” Hanna said.

  “Smartasses,” Cameron muttered.

  Prometheus stuck his head out of the doorway and grunted at them. “Are you really not going to help me?”

  “Sorry,” the Guardians mumbled as they shuffled toward the door.

  Prometheus shot Cameron a suspicious look as he passed him, so the sun god laughed and patted the Titan’s back. “Truce. At least until we get back to Earth.”

  “Who do you think I am?” Prometheus asked. “Zeus?”

  “No, I’m almost positive he’s still dead.”

  “And I’m almost positive it’s still Nergal who killed him,” Thor added. “Athena, especially, struggled with the loss of Olympus and her father, so once we find his soul and release it so Nergal can die, she should be able to get the revenge she’s wanted for centuries.”

  “Agreed,” Cameron said.

  “Think you can stop plotting my husband’s murder right in front of me?” Ereshkigal asked.

  “Probably not,” Cameron responded.

  Thor pulled Mjölnir from his belt and looked around the lavish atrium of the palace. Statues lined the walls, and as he approached one with his hammer raised to smash it open, Ereshkigal cried, “Don’t! Do you have any idea how old those are?”

  “Probably not as old as you,” Cameron guessed.

  “Not even sure what that’s supposed to mean,” Hanna admitted.

  “Me either,” Cameron also admitted.

  Thor snorted then brought Mjölnir down onto the closest statue, which might have been an homage to the Queen of the Great Below. The clay shattered and pieces of brightly painted clay scattered across the floor. He kicked at a few of them then shrugged. “Not in this one.”

  “See?” Cameron said. “Destroying the castles of your enemies is fun.”

  Thor glanced at him and snorted again. “I was a god of the Vikings. Do you really think I don’t know that?”

  Cameron seemed to think about that then nodded. “Conceded.”

  “I want to smash statues,” Prometheus said. “Anybody have an extra hammer?”

  Cameron produced one from the Otherworld and handed it to the Titan. “I’m going to check the hall. It looks like she has vases and ewers in there.”

  Thor shot him a look that Hanna recognized as, “Do you even know what that means?” so Cameron shot him an equally recognizable look that meant, “Of course, I know what it means, dumbass.”

  Truthfully, she didn’t have a clue what ewers were, but she didn’t want to ask now that they’d made it a thing. Instead, she dragged Ereshkigal, who hadn’t stopped complaining about the destruction of her statues, into the hall with her so she could help her father. He flashed a grin in her direction and whispered, “Ewers are the pitchers with handles and wide spouts.”

  “Sit,” Hanna commanded the goddess of death. She pulled a chair away from the table and forced her into it then grabbed a ewer from a pedestal and tossed it onto the ground.

  “That’s not even necessary,” Ereshkigal protested. “You can just look inside them.”

  “True, but where’s the fun in that? And besides, we’ll stop breaking your stuff as soon as you tell us where to find Nergal’s vessel.”

  “Huh,” Cameron said, eyeing the vase in his hands as if it had just revealed cosmic mysteries. “What if one of these is Nergal’s vessel? We’ve been assuming it would look like the boxes hidden on Earth, but if he brought it to the Netherworld, he wouldn’t need to bury it, so it wouldn’t be necessary to contain it within a small box.”

  “It would still be enchanted though,” Hanna said. “Which means if you’re right, all we have to do is keep breaking vases and ewers until we find one that won’t shatter.”

  “You’re going to be saying ‘ewer’ for the next week, aren’t you?”

  Hanna nodded and smashed another one against the floor. Outside in the atrium, Thor and Prometheus continued to break open the statues as she and her father broke vases and pitchers against the floor and Ereshkigal seethed from her chair by the table. But Hanna and Cameron ensured she couldn’t leave the room and kept her pinned to the chair.

  Finally, the shattering of statues from the atrium quieted and Thor and Prometheus joined them, looking around for something else to break. “Wasn’t in the atrium,” Thor announced.

  Cameron threw the last vase onto the floor, which splintered at his feet, so he flipped it off, probably just out of principle.

  Hanna pulled Ereshkigal from her chair and resisted the urge to flip her off. “There’s what… eighty more rooms to go? Let’s keep breaking—”

  But the sound of debris skidding across the atrium floor interrupted her, and the Guardians grabbed their weapons and faced the open doorway. Footsteps slowly approached the hall, and Hanna caught Ereshkigal smiling. Before she could warn the others, he appeared in the doorway, his dark eyes sweeping over the room and settling on the one god who kept besting him in battles.

  They’d failed to find his soul, but Nergal had found them.

  Chapter Eight

  Nergal kicked at a piece of glass near the doorway and lifted his eyes again to glare at Cameron. “You come to my world and think you’ll still be strong enough to defeat me?”

  “I know I am, actually,” Cameron said.

  Nergal scoffed and lifted his hand, and with it, the debris on the floor rose, hovering threateningly near the Guardians. Among the many gifts Hanna had inherited from her parents was her mother’s telekinesis, and she forced the shards of glass and ceramic back to the floor. Nergal’s furious gaze turned on her, and Cameron immediately threw his Spear, which pierced the Sumerian god’s chest.

  But Nergal simply wrapped his hands around the handle of the Spear and yanked it free, tossing it onto the ground as he entered the room.

  “Well, that’s concerning,” Thor said smartly.

  “What did you do to my wife?” Nergal demanded.

  “Took away her semi-immortality,” Hanna answered.

  Nergal’s eyebrows pulled together in obvious confusion as he glanced between Ereshkigal and Hanna, but he must have decided the Irish goddess was lying because he shook his head. “That’s impossible. And whatever you’ve done to her, I’ll do to you.”

  “Dude,” Cameron warned, “that just sounded totally pervy, and I swear to God, if you talk to my daughter like that again, I’ll roast you, and since you can’t die until we find your soul, you’ll just burn forever.”

  “Um… Cameron, I have to ask,” Thor said. “Which god?”

  Cameron nodded, because of course Thor had to ask. “Me. I think.”

  Ereshkigal peeked around the Guardians standing in front of her and beseeched her husband, “Maybe you should just finish the job and kill me.”

  Nergal took a step closer to them, so Hanna pushed him back out the doorway, where he stumbled over the broken pieces of statues and fell. The gaping hole in his chest had already stopped bleeding, and as he sat up, picking pieces of clay from his hands, she noticed they were beginning to heal immediately as well.

  “Is that new?” she whispered to her father. “Was he always able to heal that quickly?”

  “I don’t think so,” he whispered back. “This just got a lot more challenging.”

  Nergal stalked toward them, and Prometheus stepped in front of Hanna, a long spear in one hand and a sword in the other. She was momentarily too surprised to react, both by his impulse to protect her and that he’d conjured weapons to the Otherworld, something she thought only she and her father could do.

  Prometheus threw the spear at Nergal, and like Cameron’s, it pierced his chest, but only slowed him down. With his right hand free now, the Titan gripped his sword in both hands and advanced on the Sumerian god, swinging the blade toward his neck. As Nergal’s head tumbl
ed to the floor, Ereshkigal grunted and mumbled, “Now he’s really going to be a pain in the ass.”

  Hanna spun around and gaped at the goddess of the dead. “Your husband gets decapitated and that’s all you have to say?”

  Ereshkigal waved her off. “We both know he’s not actually dead. You could burn this body to ash, and he’ll still return. All you’re doing is buying yourself a little time.”

  Cameron shrugged and ignited the body anyway.

  “That’s really not a pleasant smell,” Thor observed.

  “We should probably move on to the next room before he comes back, because if that wasn’t Nergal being a pain in the ass, I’m not looking forward to finding out what is,” Cameron said.

  “I’ll just kill him again,” Prometheus told him. “Regardless of immortality, dying has still got to be painful, but he showed up anyway. I think we’re close to finding his vessel, and he’s more concerned about protecting it than his wife.”

  Hanna grabbed Ereshkigal’s arm and dragged her around the fire that was busily consuming her husband’s body… or at least one of them. She still hadn’t quite pieced together how Nergal kept returning when his body was destroyed, but she worried more about the unnatural speed at which he could heal. Nergal had no healing powers, which is why her mother had long been coveted by all of the gods, even when she was only a demigoddess.

  “Dad?” she asked quietly as they ventured into the next room, “how is he healing himself like that? He can’t subsume someone’s power, can he?”

  “He never could before, and I can’t imagine how he would have gained an extra power, especially with his soul extracted from his body.”

  “Yeah, how does that work anyway?” Prometheus asked. “Isn’t that where we get our power?”

  Hanna braced herself for the smartass comment she knew her father would make, probably about learning how to Google and use Wikipedia, but instead, he actually provided the Titan with a legitimate answer. “Their soul exists, so they can draw on its power. It’s removed from their body, but they’re still connected to it. Huitzilopochtli had a ritual, some twisted enchantment that allowed him to take the power from a god after it was concentrated in his heart.”