His sent his own Spear back to Murias because he wouldn’t fight here. He wouldn’t turn against mortals who were defenseless against gods. “Colonel Cra… uh, Colonel, there’s absolutely no chance your soldiers can walk away from this. Don’t you know anything about mythology? How do you expect them to compete against gods like Tyr and Thor?”
“Only ever heard of Thor,” the colonel answered.
Thor laughed and Tyr yelled what Cameron assumed was a string of old Norse profanities at him.
Badb tapped him on the shoulder and demanded, “What about me? You mention Thor but not me?”
“Or any of the Mórrígna?” Nemain added.
“Oh my God,” Selena groaned. “This isn’t a competition!”
“Which god?” Cameron asked.
“Badb,” Selena sighed. “And her sister.”
The colonel nodded toward Selena and asked, “And who’s she supposed to be? Athena?”
“If she were Athena, you’d be dead by now,” Badb muttered.
“Not helping,” Cameron muttered back.
Badb just shrugged. Athena smiled but didn’t correct the colonel.
“Look,” the colonel barked, “I don’t care if you’re the goddamn Avengers…”
“Two things. One: which god is damning the Avengers?” Cameron interrupted. “Definitely not me because my girlfriend here would turn around and damn me for damning her favorite group of superheroes. And two: only Thor could be one of the Avengers because I’m pretty sure the rest of them aren’t gods.”
He glanced at Selena and added, “Right?”
“Right. Although they are chasing Loki, and so are we.”
“Cool. So we kinda are like the Avengers.”
“What is wrong with you?” Ares asked. “Are you going to let me kill this guy or what? Do I really need to remind you they were firing at us a minute ago?”
“Not going to let you kill him,” Cameron told him. “And Colonel Crap-Pole is going to let us go back to the hospital so Selena can finish healing everyone who’s contracted a disease that’s supposed to be eradicated.”
“You aren’t going anywhere, young man,” Colonel Krapohl responded.
“God,” Cameron corrected.
“I’m tired of listening to these men,” Tyr growled. “Loki could be out of the city by now while we’ve wasted our time arguing with a bunch of mortals. Thor can take out their tanks and armored vehicles with Mjölnir. Cameron and Little Goddess, come help us with those who won’t run.”
“Stop calling me that!” London yelled.
Tyr ignored her and advanced on the troops that had withdrawn to the other side of the street, and the Gods of War followed him. Only Thor and Badb remained by Cameron’s side.
Selena grabbed his arm and spun him around. “We’re all leaving. Now!”
Cameron took a deep breath but wouldn’t argue with her. As soon as he felt her mind drift toward pulling the Gods of War away from the French Quarter, he helped her, even though it might mean ending their new friendship with the Norse, and worse, their new alliance.
Chapter Five
“This hotel?” Badb complained. “Again?”
Cameron shrugged even though it was really too dark for Badb to see him then walked into a post at the foot of the bed, cursing at it and the darkness and smallpox and the National Guard and, finally, Loki and Loviatar. Selena put her hands on her hips and waited.
“You finished?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “I need to include Badb.”
“What did I do?” Badb asked.
“I don’t know, but if I’m cursing people and things, it seems like you should be on the list,” Cameron snapped.
“Why did you take us away from those troops?” Tyr demanded. “Hiding from them in an empty hotel is no way to help the sick, and it’s not going to find either of the gods who’ve caused this mess!”
“Because killing people isn’t going to help either!” Cameron shouted. “If we want the government to realize we’re on their side, how is slaughtering a bunch of their soldiers going to accomplish that?”
“Instead, they’ll think we’re weak, and they can push us around,” Tyr argued. “I won’t be the servant of any mortal.”
“Nobody’s asking you to, Tyr,” Thor said. “But Cameron and Selena were right to remove you all from the Quarter. A lot has changed since we last interacted with humans, and we can’t intimidate them as we once could.”
“Of course not,” Tyr responded bitterly. “Not when your powerful new friend here won’t let us fight.”
“Our powerful new friend and ally,” Thor corrected. “And you’re forgetting who the head of our pantheon is now, old friend. I’m casting my lot with these young gods. I suggest you do the same or return to Falias.”
Tyr’s fingers on his right hand extended then retracted as he breathed heavily, but in the dark, Cameron could only see the movement of his fingers on his single hand moving over and over as the war god thought about his options. Selena found his arm and ran her fingers down the sleeve of his shirt until she grasped his hand. He squeezed her fingers gently, but the confrontation made him just as nervous. He didn’t want to be the cause of a rift between Thor and his family, but he obviously thought Thor had done the right thing by refusing to destroy the armored vehicles, which had most likely been manned.
Finally, Tyr exhaled a long, slow breath. “If you won’t let me fight here, then send me somewhere with some of the Valkyries to look for our traitor. He’ll be leaving New Orleans soon enough, if he hasn’t already.”
Thor scratched at his chin, that habit of his when he was deep in thought, and nodded. “I’ll allow two of them to go with you. Stay out of the city and keep yourselves hidden. You once helped me defend Midgard, old friend. Don’t forget.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Tyr responded. “But this isn’t Midgard. It hasn’t been for a long time.”
“People haven’t changed, Tyr,” Badb interjected. “There are more of them. And they have far more destructive weapons. But they haven’t changed.”
“Of course they’ve changed,” Nemain argued. “Go back into the city and find a man who still cowers at the sound of our name, who doesn’t look to the sky and shiver when a crow passes overhead. They’ve changed all right. They’ve lost their fear of us. They believe their technology makes them our equals. And that makes them a lot more dangerous.”
“What do the rest of us do in the meantime then?” Athena asked.
“Selena and I need to get back to the hospital,” Cameron answered. “I’d think the rest of you can search for Loviatar and Loki without triggering a major supernatural crisis.”
“There are minor supernatural crises?” Nemain asked.
“Yeah, pretty much every event that’s taken place in the Basin in the past three months,” Cameron answered.
“Conceded,” Nemain agreed.
“Weird,” London mumbled.
Cameron nodded smartly. “Nemain agreeing with me is weird.”
“No,” London responded, “I’m being called back to Houston. Sorry, guys.”
Cameron wanted to ask her why she thought Jasper would have her summoned back to the New Pantheon after insisting she stick around and help them, whether they wanted her help or not, but London was already gone.
Thor waved a large hand in the direction where she’d stood and muttered, “Great. So we’re down another god in this hunt.”
“I’m sorry, Thor,” Tyr announced. “But I can’t stay in a city where I have to follow the orders of men.”
“One of us is responsible for this city’s suffering,” Selena pointed out. “If they learn the cause of this outbreak, do you think your attitude here will convince them most gods have no intention of harming humans? If they learn about Huitzilopochtli, will that help to convince them that most of us are on their side?”
“Are we?” Athena asked quietly. “Perhaps at one time, Selena, but they revered us then. And not all
of us treated them kindly. I served a god once whose anger and jealousy often drove him toward mistreating humans. My father was a good enough reason for them to look to another god and to hold him to a higher standard.”
“As was mine,” Thor agreed. “But the legacies of our fathers don’t have to be our legacies, too.”
“Damn,” Cameron sighed. “Since when did you get so smart, Thor?”
The giant god flipped him off, but even in the darkness of the hotel room, Cameron thought he saw him smiling.
A blur of white surprised him, and he stepped back, directly into the bedpost at the foot of the bed again. “Goddamn it, London!” he yelped. “Stop doing that!”
“Sorry,” she panted. “But I’m not supposed to be here. I just came to warn you. Colonel Crap Pole obviously called in help because Jasper has been ordered to send all the agents the New Pantheon can spare to New Orleans. And they’re not just coming for Loviatar to end this outbreak. They’re coming for you.”
Cameron ran his fingers along the textured wallpaper until they touched the light switch in the bar of the lobby. It seemed like a safe place to summon a demigod who had ordered an entire agency to wage war against a group of powerful gods since there were no windows and the light wouldn’t attract attention from outside. As soon as the fluorescent lights buzzed to life, he pulled Jasper into the room, who groaned and threw his hands in the air.
“What am I doing here?” Jasper asked.
“What do you think?” Cameron snapped. “How could you send your gods after us? After me? Are you trying to get them killed?”
“Cameron, I didn’t have a choice!” Jasper exclaimed. “The President himself gave the order! Why do you think I told London?”
“You mean the goddess who just claimed she wasn’t supposed to be telling us you’d ordered your agents into the city to find us?” Selena retorted. Cameron sensed her anger threatening to boil over again, but this time, he had no intention of attempting to calm her down. Her telekinesis could level the whole damn hotel for all he cared, even if Jasper were still in it.
The New Pantheon had finally become the agency they’d always feared.
Jasper pulled a chair away from one of the tables then slumped into it. “Of course I knew she’d come back to warn you,” he claimed. “Even if you two weren’t the most powerful gods in the world, the company you keep is powerful enough to make me worry about my agents going up against you. But you and Cameron alone can’t be touched. The President refused to believe me though.”
“You really are an obnoxious asshole,” Cameron reminded him.
Jasper buried his face in his hands and mumbled, “For once, I agree with you.”
“What about Ukko?” Selena asked. “Did he try talking to the President?”
“None of my agents are powerful enough to summon Ukko from Findias,” Jasper answered. “Believe me. We tried.”
“Where the hell am I now?” Ukko sighed.
“New Orleans,” Cameron told him.
“Again?” Ukko asked. He blinked at Jasper then blinked at Cameron. “Again?”
“Looks that way,” Cameron said. “Your former agency has just been ordered to wage war against us.”
Ukko waved him off. “That’s ridiculous,” he scoffed. “The government couldn’t possibly be that stupid.”
Jasper lowered his hands and scoffed back. “Dude, I’m here. Why else would I be in New Orleans?”
“Well, didn’t you tell them no number of gods can capture Cameron?” Ukko asked.
“His ego is never going to recover from this,” Badb grumbled.
“Shut up, Crow,” Cameron teased. “You’re one to talk.”
Selena sat across from Jasper at the table and asked him, “Are your agents already in town? Are our friends seriously about to fight the New Pantheon over wanting the exact same thing: to find Loviatar and Loki and end this catastrophe?”
“Yeah,” Jasper answered. “They’re here. All I could do was tell them our primary goal is to detain the two gods wreaking havoc on a major metropolitan area, shutting down lucrative ports, and potentially ruining the tourism industry that’s kept this city functioning for decades. I don’t want them fighting any of you. But right now, the government is looking at all gods who’ve refused to join their agency as dangerous liabilities, and I honestly have no idea how to convince them that isn’t the case when we’re facing an unprecedented outbreak that’s already killing people.”
Cameron stopped scowling at the young demigod and admitted, “Maybe you’re not always an obnoxious asshole.”
Jasper smiled at him before saying, “Pretty sure you are, though.”
“I can totally smite you right now,” Cameron pretend-warned. “Right, Selena? This is a smitable offense.”
“I don’t even know how to correct smitable,” Selena admitted.
“Close enough to permission for me,” Cameron joked.
“Ukko, can you go to Washington?” Jasper asked. “I’m still a nobody demigod, but…”
“For once, I completely agree with you,” Cameron interrupted.
Jasper squinted at him then focused on Ukko again. “But you have decades of experience with these people. You can convince them to back down. Get these troops out of New Orleans and get my agents back to Houston unless Cameron and Selena want us here to help.”
Selena gestured to Jasper and told Cameron, “See? Not always an obnoxious asshole.”
“I’ve already admitted that,” Cameron replied. “Please don’t make me say it again.”
“My decades of experience don’t mean anything to them,” Ukko replied. “I tried to convince them to vote against the Security Council’s decision to involve NATO forces. They completely ignored me. At least you’re half-human, Jasper. You stand a better chance of reasoning with them than we do.”
“Obviously not,” Jasper muttered.
“Then go back and try again,” Ukko demanded. “Giving up isn’t an option. Look outside. There are tanks on the streets of New Orleans, and you’ve got an army of gods here to get in the way of the only gods who can stop Huitzilopochtli.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Jasper shouted. “Ukko, they don’t care! They started the New Pantheon to keep tabs on the gods and their descendants because they never trusted us, and just because you were able to turn this agency into a powerful one doesn’t mean they ever learned to trust you or us. And right now, we’ve got a bunch of gods out there that seem to be proving them right!”
“Then defy them,” Cameron suggested. “Jasper, you know us. You know what we’re up against.”
“I do,” he said sadly. “But I also have a fiancée here. A completely human fiancée, and you can’t ask me to endanger her.”
“She’s already in danger,” Selena told him. “You just have to decide what’s the bigger threat: the U.S. government or the gods that will unleash unimaginable misery on this planet as soon as we’re out of the picture.”
Jasper groaned and buried his face in his hands again. Ukko shuffled his weight and shot Cameron an expectant look as if asking, “Can I go home now?”
So Cameron shrugged and Ukko disappeared.
Jasper lifted his head and pointed toward the spot where Ukko had stood seconds before. “We might have needed him.”
“Nah, I have a better idea than begging Washington to be reasonable because let’s face it: that’s never going to happen,” Cameron responded. “Let’s just pretend you’re here to do exactly as they’ve ordered, but instead, order your gods to protect the troops in the city. Tell your agents to act like they’re here to keep them safe, but really, they’re just keeping them out of our way. Then we’ll be free to heal as many people as we can and find Loki and Loviatar.”
“That’s… not a bad idea, actually,” Jasper said slowly.
“Of course it’s not,” Cameron said. “It’s my idea, so naturally, it’s brilliant.”
“Don’t push it, Sun God,” Badb teased.
&n
bsp; “I can’t believe I’m doing this, but… Badb, go with Selena to the hospital. I don’t need to tell you how much I’m willing to sacrifice to keep her safe,” Cameron said.
Badb nodded at him as Selena protested, but Cameron cut her off.
“Selena, once I find Loviatar, we’ll force her to end this outbreak. Just focus on those who are about to die, and if anyone tries to hurt you, Badb can and will protect you at all costs.”
“Cameron,” Selena whispered. “I don’t want a bunch of scared humans to die because of me.”
“A bunch of sick humans will die without you,” Cameron argued.
“But what if something happens to you!” Selena cried.
Cameron tucked a few loose strands of her blonde hair behind her ear and kissed her temple. “Love, what can possibly happen? I’ve already suffered a fate worse than death without you, and I’ve died and lived happily in Findias with you. I’m not worried about my soul. It’s yours we have to protect because Fate has given you this third chance and nobody knows the outcome if you die now. That piece of me I gave up to bring you back… I don’t want it. It’s yours so that we can be together forever or I might as well cease to exist as well. Go with Badb and let her do whatever she has to in order to protect you.”
Jasper pushed his chair away from the table and offered Selena one of his rare, genuine smiles. “Don’t worry about Cameron, Selena. Everything he does is for you, and that’s the one thing I can completely understand about him. He won’t let you down. He’ll come back for you.”
“See?” Cameron said. “You know everything will be ok when even Jasper agrees with me.”
Badb gently pulled Selena’s hand away from Cameron’s arm and nodded toward the door. “There’s an entire city counting on us, Selena. You wanted us to be the Guardians of Tara. So let’s become them.”
Chapter Six
The Battle Cry (The Guardians of Tara Book 2) Page 5