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

by S. M. Schmitz

  “Only if you take me with you,” Thor told her.

  “I’m more than fine with that.”

  “And I was the first to get traumatized by huge snake gods,” Cameron added. “If anyone should get to run away to the Land of the Giants, it’s me.”

  “I’m more than fine with that, too,” Hanna said.

  Selena excitedly exclaimed, “I know what to do!”

  “Run away?” Cameron asked. “Baby, you don’t get to take credit for our idea.”

  Selena rolled her eyes at him and shook her head. “Summon one of the giants from Jötunheim. His size alone will allow him to crush the serpent-god, and we can repay him with a reasonable favor.”

  “Uh…” Thor fumbled. “You do remember I’m not exactly on good terms with the giants, right? They’re just as likely to crush us as that snake, no matter what you offer in exchange.”

  “Right,” Selena agreed. “So for once, you’ll get your wish.”

  Thor disappeared from the parking lot, so the remaining Guardians all shot Selena a “What the hell?” look that was mixed with a sizeable dose of “Can I go too?”

  “Sent him home and no,” Selena said.

  A giant appeared in their midst, and once again, Ningishzida stopped. The Jötunn’s large eyes roved over the smaller gods assembled around him then toward the Sumerian deity, finally settling on Badb whom he addressed. “Okay, Morrigan, you’ve piqued my interest.”

  “Still not Morrigan,” Badb complained. “Why does everyone always assume I’m Morrigan?”

  “Badb,” Selena hissed. “Priorities.”

  “Fine,” Badb hissed back. She turned her attention back to the giant and said, “Thrym, we need you to crush that serpent-god over there because we don’t like snakes, and we especially don’t like snakes with a humanoid head, and it’s freaking us out.”

  Thrym blinked at her then turned to Macha. “Is your sister serious?”

  “Afraid so.”

  Thrym rubbed his chin as he glanced at Ningishzida, who just stared back at the giant. The Jötunn let his hand fall and said, “And what will you pay me for helping you?”

  “Gungnir,” Cameron exclaimed. “I’ll give you the spear from one of your most reviled enemies.”

  Thrym arched an eyebrow at the young sun god and asked, “How did you get Gungnir?”

  “I killed Odin and kept his spear. I never had any intention of using it or anything, but I didn’t know what else to do with it.”

  Thrym nodded thoughtfully and eyed the snake-god again. “All right. You have a deal. But I want to see Gungnir first to make sure it’s actually Odin’s spear.”

  Cameron immediately produced the Norse god’s famous weapon and held it up for Thrym to see, whose eyes lit up with the satisfaction that his old enemy was truly dead. Without a word, he stomped off toward Ningishzida, who hastily attempted to retreat, but Thrym’s long strides easily overtook the serpent.

  The giant bent down and plucked the Sumerian deity from the ground, which was far larger than any of the Guardians, and yet, Thrym held it in his hand as if it were a toy. He twisted Ningishzida as if trying to decide what this strange creature really was then pinched its head between his thumb and forefinger. Hanna cringed as she heard bones breaking then Thrym tossed the body onto the ground and crushed the rest of the snake-god’s body beneath his boot.

  “That should be pretty dead,” Cameron murmured.

  Hanna nodded as Thrym returned to the Guardians in three quick steps. He held out his hand, and Cameron placed Gungnir in it, which Thrym held triumphantly in his palm. He returned to Jötunheim, still beaming about his new treasure, and Hanna exhaled slowly, grimacing toward the bloody remains of the Sumerian deity.

  “I’m not cleaning that up,” she insisted.

  “Let’s get out of Baton Rouge before someone figures out we’re sorta responsible for it and tries to make us,” Cameron agreed.

  “And go where?” London asked. “If we don’t find Enlil soon, all of the people he’s abducted recently could get killed. I don’t think I even want to know what he meant by enslaving them.”

  “Me either,” Cameron said. “What a perv.”

  “Jasper,” Selena decided. “Let’s see if he has any news for us.”

  “No,” Cameron groaned. “Can’t we do anything else?”

  “He’s still our strongest ally on Earth,” Selena argued. “And his network is far more extensive than ours.”

  “I agree with Mom,” Hanna said.

  “You’re ganging up on me. This isn’t fair. Selena, can we have a son? I need someone in my corner.”

  “Yes, but he’d still agree with Hanna and me.”

  “Face it, Cameron,” Badb teased. “You could have a hundred kids, but you’d still be outnumbered because your wife is just a hell of a lot smarter than you.”

  Even though she’d only been joking, Cameron nodded and agreed with her anyway.

  “No, but really,” London urged, “abducted people… a crazy, power-hungry, soulless god. You should all just shut up and meet me in Houston.”

  The Greek goddess disappeared and Cameron squinted at the spot where she’d stood. “I hate it when people do that.”

  “You do that,” Hanna pointed out.

  “I hate it when I do that.”

  Selena laughed and grabbed his hand. “Come on, love. We’re getting close… and once this is over, we most likely won’t have to intervene in any problems here for a long time. By then, the New Pantheon will have a new director.”

  “And,” Prometheus added, “it’s entirely possible Hanna and I will be able to handle future problems on our own.”

  Cameron narrowed his eyes at the Titan, so Hanna sent them all to Houston before her father could embarrass her again. As the now-familiar metal and glass skyscraper replaced the charred walls of Tiger Stadium, she pretended she didn’t even notice her father’s expression, which still hinted at his displeasure that Prometheus had suggested a future with her.

  Because she already knew this god would forever capture her heart, but if the god she idolized more than any other could never accept him, her heart would be permanently divided, and she could ultimately lose them both.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jasper pushed folders filled with papers stacked neatly inside them across the table, and Hanna flipped them open, rifling through the pages then passing them onto Prometheus who sat next to her. “These are all the living Sumerian gods. It’s impossible to know exactly how many demigods are out there. Many probably don’t even know they’re demigods… they may be mostly normal or just unusually fast or strong but not necessarily powerful in an inhuman way.”

  Hanna nodded and flipped open another file. “Bres suggested that Enlil is recruiting Sumerian demigods though. How is he finding them?”

  Jasper smiled and explained, “Gods can sense demigods. Hell, your parents were so powerful even as demigods they were able to sense us.”

  “Yeah, but he’s just wandering around what used to be Mesopotamia hoping to stumble on demigods who will be willing to serve him?”

  “He’s the head of the Sumerian pantheon now,” Prometheus said. “Heads of pantheons are more tuned into the gods and their descendants.”

  Hanna sighed and flipped open another file, and a picture of a pretty brunette with bronze skin stared back up at her. She tapped her finger on the edge of the photograph, unsure if this woman seemed familiar or if all of the files she’d opened and sifted through were just beginning to melt together. “Šerida,” she murmured.

  “Do you know her?” Jasper asked.

  Hanna studied the picture closer then shook her head. “Never even heard of her.”

  Prometheus closed the file in front of him and gestured toward the photograph. “She’s a sun goddess. Perhaps your father mentioned her?”

  “I don’t think so. My parents are so young for gods. They don’t even know many others outside our family and friends.”

  “
Do you know her?” Jasper asked Prometheus.

  The Titan eyed the picture carefully then shook his head, too. “I was in Tartarus for so long though.”

  Hanna’s fingers trailed down the page and rested on a large “B1” stamped at the bottom. “What does this mean?”

  “Paid informant,” Jasper explained. “Ukko recruited her back in the 70s. She fell off the grid when he retired though.”

  “She didn’t trust you?” Hanna asked.

  Jasper shrugged. “I took over at a chaotic time. Huitzilopochtli and his allies were unleashing all sorts of diseases and demolishing entire cities, and the U.S. government even disbanded us for a while. It took over a year of talks and negotiations to convince them to reinstate the New Pantheon. We lost quite a few informants during that time.”

  “We should talk to her,” Hanna decided. “I can get Ukko to come with us in case she’s reluctant to divulge information to strangers.”

  Jasper snorted so Hanna glanced up at him, arching an eyebrow to ask what was so funny. He sat back in his chair and said, “You think Ukko will really leave Findias? I’ve tried to get him to help out several times over the past twenty-five years, and he’s always refused.”

  “He’ll come for me,” Hanna insisted. “He and Anita are like family.”

  Jasper nodded toward the file and told her, “You can take it. We have digital copies of everything. I wish we had more for you to go on, Hanna, but I’ve had my best agents looking for this guy for a quarter of a century now, and we’re still just as lost today as we were when we started.”

  “It’s almost like he’s not on Earth,” Prometheus said. “But the Sumerian heaven was destroyed. If he were hiding in another realm, where could it possibly be?”

  Hanna lifted Šerida’s file and told him, “That’s why we need to talk to her. If Ukko doesn’t want to leave Findias, we’ll just summon her to his home.”

  “Oh, good,” Prometheus sighed. “I was missing not having a long list of enemies.”

  Hanna smiled and brought them both to Ukko’s palace in the Otherworld’s Land of the Dead. The home he shared with his wife, Anita, was surrounded by honeysuckle and violets, both of which were fragrant and sweet and always in bloom. Anita stood in her open doorway and hugged Hanna as soon as they appeared as if she’d been expecting them. Hanna glanced past her and noticed her parents sitting at a table with Ukko, so perhaps they had been waiting on her. After all, her father had left Houston almost as soon as they’d arrived, claiming she’d likely have better luck in getting Jasper’s cooperation without him around.

  Anita pointed to the file and asked, “Did you find something?”

  “I’m not sure. We need Ukko to talk to Šerida for us, see if she knows what world Enlil might be hiding in.”

  From the kitchen, her father called, “If there are snakes, I’m not going.”

  So Anita called back, “You will if Hanna needs you to.”

  The chair’s legs screeched against the tiled floor as Cameron pushed it away from the table, and he entered the short hallway, his arms folded over his chest, and shot a fake scowl toward Anita. “Snakes, Anita. That’s a deal breaker.”

  “Out of all of us, I’m the only one who’s been swallowed by a giant snake,” she reminded him. “And I’d still go for her.”

  “You just have to show me up, don’t you?” he teased.

  “What do you think Šerida knows about Enlil?” Ukko asked. “I haven’t talked to her in decades, but there was never any love lost between those two.”

  “Honestly, I know nothing about her,” Hanna admitted. “For some reason, her picture jumped out at me though, and I know better than to ignore intuition.”

  Ukko held out a hand so Hanna passed the file to him. He flipped it open and thumbed through the pages then tossed it onto his table. “You’re not going to make me go into any realms with giant snakes, are you?”

  “No,” Hanna promised. “I just need you to get any information from her she might have about Enlil or his vessel.”

  Ukko sighed and ran his fingers through his short blond hair, which caused small, unruly patches to stick up all over his head. Anita smiled up at him and smoothed it back down, so he smiled back at her, his expression softening like it always did when his wife reminded him why he’d left his agency and the world of mortals behind him forever.

  “All right,” he relented. “I’ll go talk to her.”

  “And I’ll go talk to Lugh,” Hanna said. “Find out if he knows of any realms that wouldn’t be hostile to a Sumerian god hiding out in it.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Prometheus offered, and Cameron squinted in his direction but said nothing. Once again, Hanna pretended she didn’t notice, but she needed a few minutes alone with her father to ask him what was bothering him so much about the attraction between her and the Titan.

  Hanna kissed Anita’s cheek and promised to visit her soon then led Prometheus along the winding marble paths of Findias toward Badb and Lugh’s home. The sunlight pouring through the tall red spires of Uscias’s palace created crimson stains on the white marble, and Prometheus pointed to them, saying, “Strange color for a palace. Did he want to make sure nobody missed it?”

  “No,” Hanna answered. “Red is associated with the Otherworld. It signifies that this is a sacred place.”

  They walked in silence for a while then Prometheus sighed. “Your father used to like me well enough. He never struck me as the kind of god who thought it was his responsibility to safeguard his daughter’s honor.”

  Hanna snorted and repeated, “My honor? What is this? The Dark Ages?”

  Prometheus lifted a shoulder and asked, “Does he think I’m not good enough for you?”

  Hanna slowed as they neared Badb and Lugh’s small palace, wanting to stretch this private moment out into a thousand but an entire world was depending on her. Everyone she loved was depending on her. “I’ve brought home boyfriends for my parents to meet. Even as one of the most powerful gods to have ever lived, he’s never been one to try to intimidate them or threaten them. He’s not acting like himself, and it worries me.”

  Prometheus stuffed his hands into his pockets and exhaled slowly, a careful measured breath. “Maybe it is me then.”

  Hanna shook her head. How could it be him when Fate herself had decided they should love one another? And how could her father not understand the pull of a fated love, the impossibility of escaping it?

  But Hanna didn’t have the chance to articulate any of those thoughts. Lugh opened the door and waved them in as if he’d been expecting them, too, and Prometheus immediately entered, looking defeated and resigned. Hanna’s heart squeezed painfully, but she followed him inside where Lugh shot her a curious look but kept its meaning to himself.

  Badb sat in the library, surrounded by books with leather covers and thick, heavy marks instead of letters. Hanna tilted her head but deciphering extinct languages wasn’t in her repertoire of supernatural tricks. “Cuneiform?” she asked.

  Badb glanced up at her and nodded. “We’ve been to the Netherworld and there isn’t a Sumerian heaven anymore. Where is this bastard hiding?”

  “I’m guessing it’s not a Sumerian realm,” Hanna said. “Bres thought he was only allying himself with Sumerian gods and demigods, and you’d know if he were lying. He has to be wrong.”

  “Or,” Lugh countered, “Sumerian realms aren’t as straightforward as we always thought. The Aztecs had thirteen heavens. We have four. In a lot of Sumerian mythology, An’s realm that we destroyed six centuries ago is described as the ‘highest heaven.’ Their stories claim there are three levels to their heaven, but since we could only find one, we assumed they were all the same world.”

  Hanna groaned and sat in the chair across from her friend who had returned her attention to the text in front of her. “And you’re just now realizing you might have screwed up destroying An’s heaven?”

  “Hey,” Badb protested, “if two more Sumerian heavens exist,
I’d like to see you find them. We believed the myths men wrote were referring to heaven, Earth, and the underworld—the three levels ruled over by gods. And Earth has always been Enlil’s domain.”

  “Perhaps Šerida will have answers for us,” Prometheus said. His voice sounded sad and weary.

  Badb looked him over quickly, most likely sensing his troubled thoughts, and went back to perusing the book for her own answers. Hanna sensed her parents’ presence before they reached the palace, and offered her friends a strained smile as she pushed her chair away from the table. “I’m going to see if they have any news from Ukko.”

  “Already?” Prometheus asked.

  “We all know Ukko’s nothing if not perfunctory,” Hanna claimed.

  Badb waved her off without looking up from her book. “I can think of a dozen other ways to describe him.”

  Prometheus plucked one of the old books from the table and flipped it open, so Hanna slipped out and stopped her parents before they could knock on the palace’s door. “What did Lugh say?” Selena asked.

  Hanna folded her arms over her chest and scowled at Cameron who threw his hands up and exclaimed, “What did I do? I just got here!”

  “Prometheus,” she answered. “What is your problem?”

  Cameron gaped at her then folded his arms over his chest. “I don’t have a problem.”

  “Cameron,” Selena warned.

  “I don’t,” he insisted. “He has a problem.”

  “Dad,” Hanna sighed, “how can you possibly think the Champion of the Mortals isn’t good enough for me?”

  “I never said that,” Cameron replied. “And I don’t believe that either.”

  “Then what?” Hanna cried. “In two lives, you knew Fate had blessed you with Mom, so when the same thing happens for me, you try to drive him away!”

  “Hanna,” he said, “I couldn’t possibly drive him away. And he’s the only god I’ve ever thought actually deserved you. But it’s a lot to deal with in one day—your destiny as the Last Guardian of Tara being set in motion and discovering Fate had chosen your partner. And realizing this is it: You’re going to leave home, our world, and you’ll never live here with us again.”