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

by S. M. Schmitz

  Thor stopped walking and said, “And what if that bastard taught Nergal how to do something like that? What if he’s been out there harvesting hearts and other gods’ power this whole time?”

  Cameron blinked at him then cursed the dead Aztec god and, apparently, every Sumerian god he could think of. “I doubt Huitzilopochtli would have given up any secrets though,” he added. “But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have figured out how to do it on his own.”

  “But a healer?” Hanna pressed. “They’re so rare. Where could he have possibly found one?”

  “And the New Pantheon would have noticed if demigods and gods started disappearing,” Prometheus argued. “Whatever he’s doing may mimic Huitzilopochtli’s ability to steal gods’ power, but he’s come up with…” Prometheus trailed off and groaned as he ran his fingers through his hair. “This is his world. He reigns here, and these aren’t just human spirits. I think he’s taking souls from here.”

  Hanna pulled Ereshkigal into the center of the circle the Guardians had formed and demanded, “Is that true? Is he somehow absorbing the spirits of gods and demigods who’ve died?”

  Ereshkigal lifted her chin in the air and refused to acknowledge the young goddess, so Cameron said, “That’s it. Take what’s left of her power and send her to Earth.”

  Hanna squeezed Ereshkigal’s arm, allowing just a small amount of her supernatural gifts to seep out in the hopes she’d scare the goddess enough to get her to talk.

  Ereshkigal yelped and tried to pry her arm free then finally surrendered. “If you find that damn vessel, you’ll discover his soul isn’t the only one trapped in there.”

  “Holy shit,” Cameron and Thor mumbled at the same time.

  “What happens to those souls when Perses destroys the vessel?” Hanna asked.

  “Normally, the enchantment is broken, so they just go back to wherever they belong,” Cameron explained. “But, yeah, this is different. If a soul is destroyed, which it can be outside of its land of the dead, it ceases to exist.”

  “So the only way to save the spirits of those who’ve been trapped within Nergal’s vessel is to have Perses destroy it here,” Hanna said.

  “Oh, he’s not going to like this,” Prometheus sighed.

  Hanna loosened her grip on Ereshkigal’s arm and said, “He’s not going to have a choice. I’m not letting those spirits disappear.”

  “But Hanna, they may have agreed to—”

  “I don’t care,” she interrupted. “Killing gods who are threatening Earth or the Otherworld is one thing, but killing their souls? They’re harmless to the living. If you can’t convince Perses to come to the Netherworld, then I will.”

  Hanna dragged a reluctant Sumerian goddess behind her as she stormed past the gods that would try to talk her out of bringing Perses to the Netherworld, but Fate had entrusted her with an enormous responsibility and she wouldn’t begin her reign as the Last Guardian of Tara by making more enemies who would threaten her planet.

  If her father and friends refused to accept her conditions, she’d do it alone. And by the time she was through with Enlil and Nergal, no god would even think about harming mortals again.

  Only the shattering of glass and ceramics punctuated the silence as the Guardians dug through bedrooms in Ereshkigal’s palace. Occasionally, Thor would break open a dresser or armoire or some other piece of furniture, but Hanna suspected it was more out of a desire to use Mjölnir on something than any real belief that Nergal’s vessel was hidden in there.

  Hanna had wandered off on her own, leaving Ereshkigal with her father since he could prevent her from escaping and was tapping on walls to see if any sounded hollow. But unlike her parents’ palace in Murias, Ereshkigal’s seemed extremely old and constructed almost entirely of stone.

  She sensed his presence before he entered the room, and Hanna let her hand fall. They’d searched the entire palace and found nothing, and she couldn’t decide if they should waste more time digging around the great city or just go back to Earth and hope their friends had better luck searching through Enlil’s invisible palace.

  “For what it’s worth,” Prometheus offered, “I agree with you. I don’t want those souls erased either. And considering your father’s friend and ancestor is a spirit living in Findias, I suspect he’s on the same page.”

  “I feel like there’s a ‘but’ coming.”

  “No,” Prometheus assured her. “I’m not at all convinced I have enough sway with Perses to get him to come here though.”

  “If I need to, I’ll get him here,” Hanna replied. “I mean, I’d rather not resort to god-napping, but desperate times and all.”

  Prometheus snorted and glanced out the window that overlooked a barren yard. “There are more statues outside. We’ve torn this place apart. Maybe we should look there?”

  “Yeah,” Hanna sighed. “But I’m honestly losing hope we’ll find it anywhere.”

  “Ereshkigal knew other souls were trapped within that vessel, and there’s only one place Nergal could be harvesting them. It has to be here.”

  Hanna offered him a grateful smile and was about to suggest they start digging up the Netherworld when her father called for her and Prometheus. They found him in what appeared to be a jewel room, perhaps filled with the sacrifices of Sumerians who’d requested passage through the gates to reach their final resting place.

  A broken vase lay at Cameron’s feet, and in his hands, he held a small brown box with braids of golden bands around the seams. He held it up as soon as they entered the room and exclaimed, “It’s about damn time because even I was getting bored with breaking stuff.”

  “I wasn’t,” Thor interjected, holding up Mjölnir as if no one had heard all the damage he was causing.

  Cameron shook his head at his large friend then turned his attention back toward his daughter. “I understand wanting to save those spirits trapped inside, Hanna. But you and I—and maybe Prometheus—are different than other gods. Perses won’t have the same level of strength in the Netherworld as he does on Earth.”

  “But you told me he destroyed the Seventh Heaven, and Badb told me he destroyed the Sumerian’s heaven. He might not be as strong, but he’s clearly got enough destructive power to take care of this box.”

  Cameron groaned and asked, “Don’t you know better than to say something like that? Now he’s probably going to become as impotent as this Jötunn over here.”

  Thor flipped him off, and Hanna grimaced and shot her father an apologetic glance. “It just slipped out.”

  “Do you want me to return to Earth to get Perses?” Prometheus asked.

  Hanna shook her head and flashed him a mischievous smile, much like her father’s. “I told you I’d get him here. I’m just going to summon him.”

  Prometheus blinked at her then said, “You’re going to summon him. To a hostile realm. You can’t. It’s—”

  “If he tries to tell you it’s impossible, can I smite him?” Cameron asked.

  “No,” Hanna and Thor answered at the same time.

  “And get ready,” she added, “because we’re about to have a pissed off god of destruction on our hands.”

  Chapter Nine

  Perses looked around the room before glaring at Cameron who thrust the box toward him. “Present?” he tried.

  Not surprisingly, Perses didn’t take the box from him.

  “What the hell am I doing here, Sun God?” he asked.

  Also not surprisingly, Hanna had been right: He sounded pissed.

  “Turns out, there are multiple souls trapped in this one,” Cameron explained. “We need you to destroy this vessel here so we can set them free.”

  Perses narrowed his eyes, but he didn’t have a chance to tell off the Irish god because Thor looked past them all toward the doorway and mumbled, “Great. This asshole again.”

  Hanna sighed loudly in Nergal’s direction, but Thor had already thrown Mjölnir at him. Nergal disappeared before Thor’s hammer could strike him, but
not before he threw his own spear at the Norse god of thunder. She responded by creating a barrier between them and Nergal’s spear, an invisible wall of energy that caused his spear to fall to the ground as soon as it struck. But her shield meant that they couldn’t throw their own weapons at Nergal either, and he was likely nearby, waiting to surprise them again.

  “Perses, destroy the box,” Hanna pleaded. “Once his spirit is released, we’ll be able to sense him and kill him.”

  But Perses folded his arms angrily and stared back at her. “You’ve offered me nothing, and you summoned me to a land of the dead. If you really think you’re going to be some great protector of Earth, you have a lot to learn.”

  Hanna clenched her fists, but Prometheus spoke before she could defend herself. “And if you think I’ll keep my allegiance to you just because you’re a Titan, you have a lot to learn. Open this box, Perses.”

  The Titan god of destruction glanced at the box then shook his head. “I want nothing to do with you self-proclaimed guardians.”

  “Gonna stop you right there,” Cameron said. “Hanna isn’t a self-proclaimed guardian. Fate herself chose her to be the Last Guardian of Tara, and refusing to help us means you’re refusing to help Fate.”

  “And what will Fate do? Throw me in Tartarus?” Perses scoffed.

  “Can I throw him in Tartarus?” Cameron asked Prometheus.

  “He’ll just escape again.”

  “And he’s back,” Thor sighed.

  Prometheus pulled Ereshkigal, who’d been sitting silently on the floor beside them, to her feet and said, “We still have your wife. Don’t be stupid, Nergal.”

  But Nergal’s attention was fixed on the box Cameron still held, not on his wife. A strange glow began to fill the room, and Hanna could sense something changing, but she wasn’t sure what… then she realized everything was changing. The walls appeared to come alive, and the floor beneath her feet rippled. The room became unbearably hot, worse than the desert they’d searched for the invisible palace.

  “Perses,” Prometheus shouted, “open the damn box before we all die!”

  Perses glanced at it again, and his eyes widened. He shook his head, insisting, “I can’t! Whatever he’s doing to this room is affecting me, too. You have to get us out of here.”

  The ceiling descended and Cameron gasped, “He’s going to crush us.”

  “I am not dying on my first day on the job,” Hanna replied. She snatched the box from her father’s hands and pulled all the energy from the shield into the vessel. Cameron immediately noticed it had been lowered and threw his Spear at Nergal, and once again, it pierced his chest, but just as last time, he simply yanked it free and tossed it aside.

  The room kept shrinking, but Hanna kept her focus on the vessel, which swelled as the golden seams resisted her intrusion. Nergal screamed at her, but she threw the box to the ground and it finally shattered. The room stilled and the temperature cooled, but Nergal had vanished.

  “Huh,” Cameron said. “Turns out, we don’t need Perses after all, which is a good thing since I totally want to smite him now.”

  Hanna nodded and scowled at the Titan who’d refused to help them. “Don’t ever come to me expecting my help. You’ve sealed your fate.”

  Perses, whose expression betrayed both his awe and fear, disappeared as Hanna sent him back to Earth. She let out a tired breath, but she could hardly go home to rest now. After all, their quest to protect Earth had only just begun.

  The rest of the Guardians were still searching Enlil’s fortress when they returned with news that they’d found Nergal’s vessel and Hanna had destroyed it. Badb tossed a chalice onto the floor and even though it broke, she crushed it with her boot anyway.

  “Should I ask?” Hanna said.

  Selena shrugged. “She’s just frustrated. We couldn’t even find a lead on where Enlil might have hidden his soul.”

  “We’ll deal with Enlil later,” Athena said. “Now that Nergal’s soul is in his body, we can summon him. Cameron, keep those demons he commands away. That bastard is mine.”

  “Think there’s any chance we can get him to tell us where Enlil’s vessel is?” Macha asked.

  “Still not cool with torture,” Cameron told her.

  “I’m not suggesting we torture him,” Macha replied. “Just offer him something in exchange for that information.”

  Hanna shook her head. “Won’t work. There’s nothing he wants more than power and immortality. He was more concerned about protecting his vessel than his wife.”

  “I’m summoning him,” Athena said. “And I’m killing him. I’ve waited over six centuries to avenge my father’s death.”

  Nergal appeared in their midst, and Hanna sensed him attempting to draw in the malevolent spirits he used to spread disease. The smoky black phantoms dove toward them, and she and her father once again ignited an impossibly hot fire that broke them apart like fog evaporating in the sunlight. Nergal had come armed though, and as he lunged, Athena pivoted and her blade grazed his arm, forcing him to drop his sword. Injured and weaponless, the Greek goddess easily beheaded him, and the spirits that had dropped back from the fires disappeared.

  “One down, two to go,” Badb announced as if the others had a difficult time keeping track of three soulless gods.

  “Guess we can’t question him now,” Macha observed smartly.

  “Unless he removed his soul again, and somehow, that head is going to reattach itself to his body,” Nemain replied.

  “I’m oddly intrigued by that possibility,” Ares admitted.

  “You really should keep some things to yourself,” Cameron told him.

  “But we’ve never actually seen their bodies regenerate. Will it disappear? Or are there dozens of Sumerian god bodies just lying around because they get a new one each time?”

  Cameron shrugged. “Definitely going with new bodies since even cremation doesn’t permanently kill them. And I’m not hauling around anyone’s body to find out what happens to it.”

  “I think it’s that whole ‘watched pot’ thing. Bet they don’t come back to life until we’re no longer around to witness it.”

  “Mom,” Hanna begged, “please make them stop.”

  Selena offered her daughter a sheepish smile and said, “Honestly, I’m kinda curious about how this works, too.”

  “Enlil,” Hanna reminded them.

  “Any chance there’s a prophecy about him?” Cameron asked. “Descendants, relatives, legends… as of right now, we have nothing but an invisible palace and a dead god. This isn’t looking good.”

  “He knows he can’t defeat us, so his only hope of gaining control over even a part of Earth is to trick us,” Hanna reasoned. “Maybe we should go see Lugh. He might know something about Enlil’s myths that can point us in the right direction.”

  The invisible fortress immediately disappeared, replaced by the pleasantly cool temperatures of Findias. Everyone shot Cameron a “What the hell?” look, so he grinned and told them, “We’re on the clock here.”

  The white marble pathway that wound throughout the Land of the Dead led them to the small palace where Lugh and Badb lived, and the old sun god waited for them in the doorway. He smiled at Hanna and wished her a happy birthday, so she laughed and told him she never imagined spending her twenty-fifth birthday trying to save the world.

  “I’m not surprised,” Lugh replied. “Your parents seem to do it all the time.”

  Cameron nodded. “We deserve a raise.”

  “We don’t get paid,” Selena pointed out.

  Cameron pretended to think about it then added, “We should get a new job.”

  “We really should,” Thor agreed. “Even when humans did pay us, they seemed to think we wanted dead animals instead of money.”

  “Or worse, dead people,” Ares added.

  “Did you really come to Findias to have a conversation about sacrifices?” Lugh asked.

  “Yes,” Cameron said at the same time as Hanna said, “N
o.”

  “Is there anything you can tell us about Enlil that might help us figure out where his vessel is hidden?” Hanna asked.

  Lugh waved them inside and brought them into his library, where he plucked a book from his shelf and handed it to Hanna. “The New Pantheon has been scouring the Mesopotamian region for twenty-five years now and come up empty. We all suspect he’s going to make a play for his old stomping grounds, and that he’d want to keep it close. Something as important as your own soul should be well guarded, right?”

  “We just ransacked his invisible fortress and came up empty,” London explained. “But Hanna just found Nergal’s vessel in the Netherworld.”

  “Makes sense,” Lugh said. “But Enlil is associated with the sky, and I doubt his soul is trapped in the sky somewhere.”

  “You’re really useless sometimes, you know that?” Cameron teased.

  Lugh pretended to agree with him and handed him a different book. “My suggestion is to look for someone who’s not actively hiding from you and question her. And I know exactly where to find a goddess for you to question, Cameron.”

  The young sun god didn’t bother opening the book but extended his hand and tried to give it back to his friend. “Nope. Not going.”

  Lugh’s smile widened, and he refused to take the book. “But you have to. It’s genetically required.”

  “I will smite you,” he warned.

  “No, you won’t,” Lugh retorted. “And I think you’ll find Tiamat in the Persian Gulf.”

  Cameron glanced over his shoulder toward his friends and arched an eyebrow at them as if asking, or perhaps hoping, what kind of goddess Lugh expected them to find. Athena arched an eyebrow back at him and said, “It is part of your destiny, Sun God.”

  Cameron turned his gaze on his daughter and shook his head. “Sorry, Baby. I’m out.”

  “I don’t know who Tiamat is, but if she’s some sort of water goddess, maybe we can just send Poseidon after her,” Hanna compromised.

  “I love that idea,” Cameron quickly agreed.