She shook her head at the door and turned to Cameron and Selena, the mischievous sparkle in her eyes quickly disappearing. “Oh,” she breathed. “I’ll, um… I’ll see you in the morning.”
She pulled the aluminum door open and shooed Jasper across the hall. Cameron immediately got off the bed and wouldn’t meet Selena’s eyes again. The silence that hung in the air between them was even heavier than the silence that had filled the car after Anita’s not-so-subtle point about fated lovers and their enemies.
“Cameron,” she said, but he shook his head at her. He turned the lamp off and lay down on his bed.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “That was stupid, and I’m sorry.”
“Cameron, it wasn’t…” she tried again, but he still wouldn’t let her finish.
“I can’t…” He inhaled a slow, deep breath and she saw the dark outline of his arm move across his face. “I can’t have that kind of a relationship with you when I know what it would mean to me, and what it wouldn’t mean to you.”
Selena’s stomach turned and she slid lower on her bed as her mind either raced with too many thoughts or emptied completely: she couldn’t even tell the two apart anymore. “You think I don’t care about you?” she finally asked.
That’s not the right question, Selena. That wasn’t the right thing to say. Goddamn it, woman! Just tell him the truth now and run. Let Badb find her own Sword.
“I know you do, Selena. Of course I know that. Just… please don’t worry about it. Get some sleep, ok?”
Sleep? How could she sleep after this? How could she ever sleep again? If the Cauldron hadn’t been stolen, she would have accepted it already, and her fate would have been sealed. She would have lost the future she knew now she had to choose because any other future would kill her. She’d often thought those legends of lovers dying of grief were romanticism at its worst, but she’d never understood that between the pages, between the lines of those myths, was an undercurrent of truth about the differences between gods and humans.
Human genetics might determine hair color and eye color and height, but a god’s genes carried so much power, so much history and knowledge of both the past and the future. Cameron’s fate was too closely tied to hers, and without him, she may as well surrender her own soul. And maybe that’s what Anita had been trying to tell them, too. For some of the descendants of the gods, their destinies were interwoven just like Lugh’s seal in a pattern that brought them together over and over again.
No. She wouldn’t torture him like this. She couldn’t.
Badb wouldn’t be able to return to Earth until after Halloween, but then, she would tell her that she and Cameron couldn’t help her after all, and she would ask for her forgiveness, even though she didn’t think she deserved it. They would leave Mjölnir with her and hope it at least provided her with some leverage against the Norse.
If Badb couldn’t forgive her, then she could accept and survive the loss of the goddess she had come to love. But she could never survive losing Cameron.
“Cameron?” she whispered.
“Hm?”
“Remember when Anita said something seemed different about me, and I promised I’d tell you once this was all over?”
“Yeah, that was just this morning. Or technically yesterday morning. My memory’s not that bad.”
Selena smiled at his dark shape in the other bed and promised him, “I changed my mind. Badb will come back on Samhain after they make sure Ninurta’s invasion fails, and I’ll tell you then.”
Cameron propped himself up on an elbow, and she assumed he was staring back at her, but he didn’t switch the light back on. “Ok, is this some Irish myth thing where you can only tell this secret on certain days of the year?”
Selena snorted and shook her head then remembered it was too dark in the room for him to see her well. “No. It’s not even a secret. Not really.”
“Did one of those Greek gods hit on you? Because I’m pretty sure I can get back there and…”
Selena laughed and assured him no one had hit on her. “Everything’s going to be ok, Cameron. I promise.”
Cameron sighed and lay back on the bed. “So… you figured out how to find Nuada’s heir, all of the missing treasures, prevent this civil war, and somehow convince Ukko to leave us all alone? You are officially the most badass goddess ever.”
“Demigoddess,” she corrected.
She saw Cameron’s hand wave in the air. “Close enough.”
No, she thought, not anymore. Not ever again.
Chapter Ten
Jasper had woken them up early so they could help him retrieve the stolen Mercedes he’d abandoned five miles down the road in a wooded area between Baton Rouge and Central. As soon as Cameron opened the door to their motel room, muttering about the Greeks all being such obnoxious assholes, Jasper had informed them they were going to take their stolen Mercedes north to meet his dealer.
And Cameron had laughed and asked him when he’d become such a thug.
Jasper had threatened to punch him, Anita had mumbled something about needing far more coffee, and Selena had thrown her pillow at them all.
It hadn’t been a good start to her morning.
When Cameron and Jasper stopped arguing, Jasper explained that his dealer was the guy who was going to get Cameron and Anita their own guns. And after Cameron pestered him for almost ten minutes straight about how he’d met such dubious characters and if the serial numbers would be scratched off or if they’d have to pass a background check, Jasper gave up with a loud sigh. “It’s my uncle, dipshit, ok? He lives north of Natchitoches. I called him this morning, and he has a .357 he can sell you and a .9mm for Anita.”
“I honestly don’t know what that means,” Selena admitted.
“That’s why you’re not getting one,” Jasper told her. “You’d probably just end up accidentally shooting yourself and then we’d all be screwed.”
“You are such an asshole,” Cameron reminded him. “And why the hell did you insist we return to Baton Rouge if we’re just heading to Natchitoches again? We just drove through Natchitoches.”
“Because Athena didn’t exactly give me any time to take care of loose ends, and I’d like to come back here and handle a few things, ok?” Jasper snapped.
“What? You’ve got more dealers you owe money to?”
“Dude,” Jasper warned.
“Or pimps. I’ll bet its pimps because paying a woman to put up with your shit is the only way she would.”
Jasper looked at Selena and asked her, “That’s it. I don’t care if he’s supposedly some badass almost-god. I’m hitting him. You’ll save my life if I almost die, right?”
The rest of the morning as they walked to the car hadn’t gone much differently.
Jasper led them into a thick patch of woods off a dirt road where they found the stolen Mercedes, out of gas after idling all night since he couldn’t turn it off. Selena slid behind the wheel and put the transmission in neutral then forced the car to roll down the street to the nearest gas station. Jasper winked at her and told her she was awfully handy to have around, which led to Cameron threatening to kick his ass again. Selena wasn’t sure why this time, other than that seemed to be Cameron’s natural response to anything Jasper said.
“Anita,” Selena sighed, “would you like to run away with me? Hawaii maybe? The Norse could have hidden the Unbreakable Sword there.”
Anita nodded. “I would definitely be up for this plan if I weren’t actually worried those two would kill each other.”
Selena snickered and shook her head. “Only one man would be dying, and it wouldn’t be Cameron.”
Jasper overheard them and protested loudly, “Hey! I still have the only gun.”
“Sh!” the other three demigods protested back.
“Besides,” Cameron added. “I’m pretty sure I’m developing Spidey senses or something. I could probably dodge a bullet.”
“That’s Superman, Cameron,” Selena correcte
d.
“Oh,” he said. “Well, what the hell can Spiderman do besides shoot spider webs?”
“That is a lame superpower,” Jasper agreed. “So it would be fitting for you.”
Selena looked at Anita and told her to get in the car and close her door. She was locking them inside.
The three-hour drive to his uncle’s house north of Natchitoches felt like it took three days.
Jasper drove them to a small town across Red River and parked in the driveway of a white vinyl-sided house where an older man who looked about Anita’s age was sitting inside a green aluminum boat. He looked up as the car pulled into his driveway and lifted a hand then went back to working on his reel.
“Must be heading out to Black Lake today,” Jasper said. “He’s my normal, human uncle, so just…” Jasper gave Cameron a pointed look and finished, “Don’t be an obnoxious asshole.”
Cameron feigned innocence. “I’m never an obnoxious asshole.”
They followed Jasper to the side of the boat, sitting on its trailer and hitched to the back of a Chevrolet truck, and Jasper’s uncle pointed the reel toward the Mercedes then lowered his eyes to keep trying to untangle a knot so he could rethread it. “Nice car. They give you god hunters a raise?”
“Uh… not exactly. Apparently, there are a bunch of other gods that want us all dead now, so we’re kinda on the lam, which is why we’re here,” Jasper said.
“Figured it was stolen. You need to ditch it, and you need a car the police won’t be looking for.”
“Yeah, well, unfortunately, Athena didn’t drop me off in a cornfield in Nebraska with buckets of cash,” Jasper complained.
His uncle shrugged and kept working on his reel. “Go inside and get the keys for the Malibu.”
“Uncle Martin…”
“Jasper, just go,” his uncle sighed. “Keep it up, and I will call your mother.”
Selena glanced at Cameron to see what he thought of Jasper and his uncle, who obviously loved him and worried about him, and if it would finally convince Cameron to back off on the constant bickering, but Cameron wasn’t even paying attention to their conversation. His focus was on the boat and the reel in Martin’s hands.
As soon as Jasper walked inside the house Cameron introduced himself then asked, “What’s biting?”
“It’s too late in the day for white perch, unfortunately,” Martin said. “Here, think you can unknot this?” He handed the reel to Cameron as he climbed inside the boat. He sat across from Martin and immediately began working on the reel.
“Bass?” Cameron asked.
“That’s what I’m hoping. It’s already eleven, and I’m usually ‘bout ready to head home by this time so I don’t know how well anything will be biting.”
Cameron unknotted the line and began rethreading it as Martin smiled at him. “I’ve been working at that for almost an hour. Should’ve just waited for you. But Jasper didn’t tell me any of his buddies were fishermen.”
“Eh,” Cameron shrugged, “probably because we’re not friends. We’re working together because we have to. And trying to tolerate each other.”
Martin smiled again and opened his tackle box. Selena watched him as he carefully placed a few new colorful lures into their designated spots. “Tried to get Jasper interested in fishing when he was younger but never had much luck. That boy never seemed much interested in anything except girls.”
Selena laughed then pressed her lips together, worried she hadn’t even had a chance to speak yet and had already offended the man who was helping them. But when Martin looked up at her, his eyes laughed, too. “Guess he can’t help it, being who he is and all, but he’ll settle down one day. His father was just like him until he met my sister.”
Selena leaned her arms against the side of the boat and watched as Cameron finished, his chocolate brown eyes darting to the tackle box with almost as much longing as he sometimes looked at her. It was both endearing and a little heartbreaking because, soon, their lives would consist of constantly running and hiding and he would be abandoning every one of his passions and interests just to be with her. He would be abandoning his family, his father and brother whom he often sat with in a similar boat and threaded similar reels to go on similar fishing trips.
Her throat clenched painfully, and Anita put a hand on her back then just as quickly moved it away and pretended nothing unusual had happened. “I haven’t been fishing since I was a little girl,” she told Martin.
Inside the house, they heard Jasper calling, “I know, Aunt Sue! We’re being careful, I promise!”
Cameron nodded toward the house. “You know why he’s a god hunter, right?”
Martin nodded and closed the lid on his tackle box. “I know about the New Pantheon and I know how close they came to capturing him. I should know. I was the one who was with him.”
“Holy shit,” Cameron mumbled. “He’s always left that part of the story out.”
“Bout six years ago, I convinced him to come with us to Black Lake one morning because I was taking his little brother. He seems to be a little more normal than Jasper, but Jasper worries he’s not normal enough for the New Pantheon but too normal to have a chance of defending himself against them. We’d just gone back to the landing and gotten the boat on the trailer when they tried to grab Marcus. Boy was only thirteen at the time. What kind of sick assholes threaten a thirteen-year-old boy?”
“Ukko and the New Pantheon,” Cameron replied bitterly.
Martin nodded and turned toward his house where his wife must have been trying to convince Jasper to let her make them all something for lunch; they could hear the pots banging around in the kitchen through the open window and her high-pitched voice occasionally carrying through the crisp late October air, telling him, “But I never see you anymore!”
Martin slid off the bench and lifted the lid into the storage below as he finished his story. “Course, Jasper immediately fought those guys, and they let go of Marcus to grab onto him. Guess that was their plan all along.” He lifted a pistol from the storage and handed it to Cameron. “Put a bullet through the shoulder of one of ‘em with this, and trust me: even a god ain’t gonna brush off getting shot with a .357.”
“So it does work,” Selena breathed.
Martin gave her a strange look and asked her, “What does, Sweetheart?”
“Shooting a god. It will work. As long as we’re on Earth…” She met Cameron’s eyes, and he grinned at her.
“This is so much more convenient than a hammer.”
Selena snickered and nodded, but Cameron had no way of knowing why this news lifted such a weight from her shoulders. She never planned on stepping foot in the Otherworld again.
The screen door opened and Jasper bounded onto the porch, shaking his head at his uncle, but wearing a happy half-grin. “She’s impossible.”
“Yup,” his Uncle Martin agreed.
“Remind me I promised her I’d come visit with Marcus if I lived long enough.”
“Well, I’m sure that calmed her right down.”
“I may have left out that last part.”
Martin handed him the .9mm, which Jasper promptly turned over to Anita, then Martin slapped his thigh and stood up.
“Y’all follow me out to Black Lake. Dump the car off one of the docks that doesn’t have any traffic around it then take off in the Malibu.”
“Is the water off the dock going to be deep enough to cover the car?” Cameron asked.
“Should be, at least right now. That water’s dark enough that it doesn’t need a lot of coverage. As long as it’s fairly well submerged, it will stay hidden a while.”
“Besides,” Selena added, “I can move it farther into the lake.”
“Having a telekinetic around really is handy. We could form our own Mafia,” Cameron teased.
“Make them stop,” Jasper groaned. “With your luck, we stole some Mafia boss’s car and you’re going to invoke their wrath now, too.”
Cameron waved him o
ff and jumped down from the boat. “They’re human. I’m not worried about humans.”
“He kills two gods, and now he thinks he’s invincible,” Jasper muttered.
“And he caught Thor’s hammer and badly injured him with it,” Selena added.
“I don’t know what any of that means, but I do know if y’all don’t get moving, the fish are going to stop biting,” Martin said.
Cameron and Selena got in the Mercedes and followed the caravan to the nearby lake. She waited in the car as Cameron got out to help Jasper’s uncle launch his boat then held the rope so he wouldn’t have to tie off. Cameron continued to hold the boat near the landing and waited for Martin to return as he parked his truck and walked back to the launch.
Jasper and Anita sat in the Malibu, not even watching Cameron and Martin. Jasper kept gesturing toward different sections of the lake, perhaps indicating which docks they would check for a private area to dump the Mercedes.
Cameron held the boat steady as Martin climbed in then he pushed him off and waved. Martin started the outboard motor and waved back, smiling and yelling something to Cameron before he took off toward what Selena presumed was his favorite fishing spot. She smiled as she watched Cameron jog back to the car. He had once claimed it always seemed demigods were descended from the most temperamental gods, never those rare deities like Prometheus that became champions for the mortals. But he was that man and that demigod, regardless of his genetics.
He pulled the driver’s side door open and climbed in then grinned back at her. “What?”
“Nothing,” she sort-of lied. “I just wish we had time for you to go with him. He would have loved the company, and you clearly love to fish. You’ll have to teach me one day.”
Cameron nodded as he followed Jasper around the lake. “Yeah, he seems really cool, too. Clearly, all of Jasper’s asshole genes come from his father’s side.”
Selena snickered and watched the dark water rippling across the surface of the lake. “I told you: everyone has something good in them. Jasper isn’t as bad as you think. He just hides it really well sometimes.”
Cities of the Gods (The Unbreakable Sword Series Book 2) Page 11