Battle of the Gods (The Unbreakable Sword Series Book 4) Page 2

  “I think we need to get out of here. If Ukko’s not going to help us, no point in staying in Houston, right?”

  Cameron nodded and offered her that mischievous grin. “Cornfield?”

  “Think that’s where he’s hidden Anita? Grab Jasper first. Let him go in there to look.”

  “Good idea,” Cameron agreed.

  “Great,” Jasper muttered, folding his arms indignantly as he stared at the powerful young sun god who’d summoned him. “You realize you left Doug behind, right?”

  “Damn it,” Cameron muttered back.

  “Great,” Doug muttered. “Never got used to this summoning thing. And I had half a stack of pancakes left. You owe me breakfast.”

  “Are we going to find Anita yet?” Jasper asked, looking at the tall building behind him that housed the New Pantheon’s headquarters.

  “She’s on our list,” Cameron answered. “Apparently, Badb is still adamant we find Nuada’s heir. She’s so unreasonable.”

  “Where is your war goddess?” Doug asked. “Just warn me if she’s pretending to be one of these birds hanging around here so I can watch what I say.”

  Cameron snickered and shook his head. “Go ahead and say it. I’ll protect you.”

  “Can we please get out of Houston?” Selena begged. “If Alan is back, I don’t want to be anywhere near him.”

  Cameron’s eyes clouded and he scowled at the busy street. “I do, because next time I see that bastard, I’m killing him.”

  “Fine,” Jasper sighed. “But it doesn’t have to be today. Let’s just get this assignment over with and find Anita. Some of us have more important things to return to, you know.”

  Selena hurriedly answered him before Cameron could make a smartass comment about his important business he had to return to. “We’ll start working our way through the list of Anita’s relatives,” she said. “It shouldn’t be that difficult.”

  “Why did you have to say that?” Cameron groaned.

  Selena’s eyes widened and she shook her head at him. “It just slipped out.”

  “Who’s first?” Doug asked. “Anita or the heir? Sooner we find this heir, sooner you can find your pot.”

  Cameron snorted so Selena let go of his hand and glared at him. “Cauldron,” she corrected.

  “Yeah, you’d think he’s the one with the missing pot,” Jasper said, gesturing toward Cameron, “but he doesn’t even drink. He’s just naturally obnoxious.”

  “Can I smite him yet?” Cameron pleaded.

  “No,” Selena insisted. “You just laughed at Doug’s pun.”

  “Completely unintentional,” Doug lied.

  “Good God, at this rate, you’ll never find Nauda’s heir,” Badb interrupted.

  “Hey Doug,” Cameron said, “watch what you say about her. The old crow is here.”

  Doug nodded smartly and Badb rolled her eyes. “With Anita still in hiding, I knew this group would need a babysitter. Doug, I’d held out hope for you, but you’re proving to be a huge disappointment.”

  Doug nodded and retorted, “Not the first time I’ve heard that.”

  “Now that you’re here,” Cameron continued, “you should tell them all about Ukko’s deal with the Tuatha Dé. They’re risking their lives for you. Only fair.”

  “For us,” Badb clarified. “And I’ll tell them as long as we can get off this sidewalk and actually start looking for our new ruler.”

  “Man,” Doug whistled. “Can you imagine? One day, you’re a nobody demigod, and the next, you’re the monarch of one of the most powerful pantheons in the world.”

  “Badb,” Jasper whined, “please get me out of Houston.”

  Badb gave Cameron a pointed look and put a hand on her hip, waiting for him to transport them all somewhere. Selena gave her a pointed look and mimicked her stance. “You’re not an old woman.”

  “Technically,” Cameron interrupted, “she’s like a million years old.”

  “Technically,” Badb said, “that’s not even close. A few thousand years, but who’s counting? And what’s your point, Selena?”

  “My point,” Selena responded, “is that you usually only come to Earth looking like this when you’re expecting to fight someone or sleep with someone.”

  “Ew,” Cameron interrupted. “There aren’t enough Irish lads around. And even if there were… you won’t let me get a lobotomy, so please don’t ever say that again.”

  Badb put her other hand on her hip and snapped, “I have sex, Cameron, get over it.”

  “Bring me back my damn caribou,” Cameron snapped back.

  Selena sighed as the war goddess disappeared from the Houston sidewalk. “Cameron, one of these days, she will bring you a real reindeer, and I’m not taking care of it. You’re on your own.”

  “Another deal breaker, huh?” he teased.

  Selena just shrugged as both Jasper and Doug sighed impatiently. She heard the clicking of hooves behind her and looked over her shoulder and found herself staring up into the long face of a Canadian reindeer.

  Badb held her hands out toward it and gave Cameron a self-satisfied smirk. “Happy?”

  Cameron looked it over then shook his head. “You got the wrong one.”

  “Cameron, I swear to God…” Badb warned, but Cameron interrupted her.

  “Which god?”

  “You!” Badb yelled. “If you send me back to that frozen island one more time…”

  Selena never had the chance to find out what she was going to do about it because the door to the New Pantheon’s headquarters opened and Ukko stepped out, glaring at each of the gods and demigods standing in front of his building arguing about a reindeer.

  “Get rid of the…” He paused and rubbed his forehead. “You know what? I don’t even care what it is. Send it back wherever you got it and get out of here. You’re causing a scene and distracting my employees.”

  “Caribou,” Cameron supplied helpfully. “Pretty sure she got it from Ellesmere Island because it would be kinda stupid to wander all over the Arctic looking for one somewhere else.”

  “What is wrong with you?” Ukko asked.

  “Still not sure. When are you going to stop asking me that?”

  “When are you going to behave like a normal person?” Ukko shot back.

  Jasper snorted and told him, “If that’s what you’re waiting on, it’s a good thing you’re sort of immortal.”

  Ukko blinked at Doug and sighed again. “How the hell did you let yourself get mixed up with this group?”

  “Anita,” Doug answered.

  “Right,” Ukko agreed.

  “You know,” Jasper said, “I’d really like to leave now. Just because this Finnish asshole helped us out at Lake Waco doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven him for trying to kidnap my little brother. And at the very least, I’d still like to kick his ass for that, but something tells me Cameron isn’t going to intervene to save me.”

  Ukko just waved him off. “I wasn’t trying to take your brother. I was trying to get to you.”

  “Oh, that will make him hate you less,” Cameron snapped. “Dude, stop trying to kidnap people!”

  Ukko turned his pale blue eyes on Cameron and gave him a defiant look that was mixed with something Selena thought resembled innocence… as if he really couldn’t understand these accusations they kept leveling against him. “We eventually let them go if they decide not to join us. I just present them with their full range of options and the benefits of working for me first.”

  “Let them go?” Selena scoffed. “You might not be killing them, but none of them can go back to their normal lives. They have to start over, and for demigods who’ve never stepped foot in the Otherworld…”

  “Wait a minute,” Jasper interrupted. “The Otherworld?”

  “Yeah,” Cameron explained, pointing to the Finnish thunder god. “Apparently, they aren’t murdering demigods and gods who refuse to join them. People have been disappearing for decades because if they refuse to become part of the New
Pantheon, they get shipped off to… Greece?”

  “Gorias,” Selena and Badb corrected at the same time.

  Ukko threw his hands up and exclaimed, “It’s the Otherworld! Who wouldn’t want to live there?”

  Selena grunted at him and insisted, “Me! Not before I met Cameron and Badb, I mean. I was happy with my Aunt Tara…” Her voice trailed off as she realized that with the threat of Ukko abducting or murdering her aunt to get to her virtually nonexistent now, she could actually find her aunt and see her and hug her and hear her voice again. And tell her all about this incredible journey she’d been on for the past couple of months, the remarkable love she’d discovered, and her destiny to sit on the pantheon of the Tuatha Dé.

  And she could tell her about her sister, Selena’s mother, whose spirit lived on in Findias.

  Selena was so preoccupied with thoughts of her aunt that she didn’t even notice the caribou had disappeared and Badb had approached her. She took her hand gently and stroked her cheek and whispered, “I promise you, Child. We’ll find her. Ukko is no threat to her anymore because he knows he can’t compete against Cameron.”

  It was Ukko’s turn to grunt as he tugged on his jacket and lifted his chin in the air. “Gorias is hardly Hell,” he protested.

  Cameron waved him off and told him to go find someone else to stalk for a while. They were busy.

  “You’re stalking me! You’re in front of my building!” Ukko persisted. “What is it going to take to get rid of all of you?”

  “Help us out,” Selena suggested. “We’ll even let you take your pick: Mithra, the Aztec god whose name I’m really too afraid to say…”

  “Don’t blame you,” Cameron interjected.

  “The Norse,” Selena continued, “or you could take one of the easier jobs and just find Nuada’s heir or my Cauldron. That’s your thing, right? Finding people and stuff?”

  Ukko narrowed his eyes at her and said, “Your boyfriend has been a bad influence on you.”

  “Thank you,” Cameron said.

  “Ukko,” Badb sighed, “let me talk to Anita. We’re her friends and we’re worried about her.”

  “What for? You of all people should know she’s safe.”

  “What does he mean by that?” Jasper demanded.

  “I suspect he’s referring to Badb’s ability to read mind’s so well,” Selena answered. “And she’s probably digging around in his trying to figure out where Anita is.”

  Ukko snorted and crossed his arms. “Find her yet?”

  “Yep,” Jasper said. “He’s still a bigger obnoxious asshole than you, Cameron.”

  Cameron nodded and patted Jasper’s shoulder. “We have something to live up to.”

  Badb blew a frustrated breath through her lips and hissed, “You don’t know where she is! You knew I’d come looking for her and had someone else take her away!”

  Ukko just smiled at her then reached for the door. “We’ve known each other a long time, Badb. What made you think I’d suddenly become so stupid?”

  The Finnish thunder god pulled his door open and walked inside his building, leaving Anita’s friends outside on the Houston sidewalk with the Irish psychic demigoddess potentially lost to them forever.

  Chapter Three

  Being a god of honor, Cameron vowed to replace Doug’s breakfast, but after realizing that they may never be able to find Anita, he insisted he’d lost his appetite. Instead, they decided to visit the first name on the list of her relatives to see if he reacted to the Sword. Cameron brought the group to Des Moines where the thirty-one-year old math teacher lived on a quiet street with neatly trimmed lawns and the occasional garden gnome peeking out at them from underneath a hedge.

  Badb kicked one over as they walked up his steps and Selena gave her a “What the hell was that for?” look so Badb gave her an “I don’t like gnomes” look. She shook her head at the war goddess to scold her, but Doug stepped around them and knocked over the gnome’s wife who was holding a pitchfork. He grinned at Selena and shrugged.

  Cameron ignored them all and knocked on the man’s door.

  A high-pitched yapping greeted his knock and the ticking of hard nails scurried against the floor. Cameron glanced at Selena and asked, “Can I smite dogs?”

  Selena laughed and looked at Badb who shook her head. “Humans hate that even more than smiting other humans.”

  A man’s voice finally joined the dog’s and Selena watched through the window as a shadowy figure approached the door. When it opened, Jonathan Sullivan looked exactly like she’d picture a thirty-one-year-old high school math teacher who lived alone with a Norfolk Terrier. He even wore the sweater vest… Jonathan and the dog.

  Jonathan scooped up his pet and warily eyed the strange group of men and women on his porch. “May I help you?” he asked.

  “This can’t be the right house,” Jasper said.

  “Just show him the Sword,” Badb sighed.

  “If he’s the heir, I’m going home to Baton Rouge,” Cameron insisted.

  “I… think you have the wrong house,” Jonathan said.

  “God, I hope so,” Cameron mumbled.

  “Which god?” Selena asked.

  Cameron looked over Jonathan then decided, “Nuada. Because his heir is supposed to fight alongside me, right?”

  “I’m going to call the cops,” Jonathan said.

  Doug laughed.

  Jasper muttered something about all Irish descendants being obnoxious assholes.

  Badb threatened to turn herself into a crow.

  And Selena just wanted her boyfriend to get the damn Sword so they could either prove he was the heir or move on.

  Cameron grimaced as he held his hand out and the Sword appeared, its red jeweled hilt and glistening blade reflecting the morning sunlight toward the assembled gods and demigods. Jonathan gasped and backed away from the Sword, his eyes widening as he stammered, “How did you do that? And what do you want from me?”

  “Is this yours?” Cameron asked.

  Jonathan’s eyebrows pulled together as his eyes shifted from the Sword to the god holding it. “Mine? I’ve never seen it before. What would I even do with a sword?”

  “Oh, thank God,” Badb sighed.

  “Yeah, and I know exactly which god to thank,” Selena added.

  “Who the hell are you people?” Jonathan demanded.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Cameron said. He let his hand fall by his side, and the Sword disappeared again. “Sorry to bother you. And sorry about your gnomes.”

  Cameron grabbed Selena’s hand and as they stepped off the porch, with Jonathan, who likely hadn’t even known he was a demigod, gaping at their backs and his dog yapping after them, he asked her, “Where to next? This is easy.”

  Everyone groaned and Cameron cringed. “Pretend I didn’t say that.”

  “Too late,” Doug said.

  Badb nodded and added, “I should recruit help to figure out how to banish you to Ellesmere Island for that.”

  “I didn’t banish you,” Cameron pointed out. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

  Selena pulled up the list of names on her phone and told him, “Lexington, Kentucky. Twenty-two-year-old guy named Mike Jensen.”

  “If he’s wearing a sweater vest, I’m not going to bother showing him the Sword,” Cameron warned.

  “Don’t blame you,” Doug agreed.

  “I don’t suggest we actually walk to Lexington,” Jasper said. “Do your Cloak and Dagger thing.”

  “You’re not using that reference correctly,” Selena responded. “They were kids who…”

  “Selena,” Jasper sighed. “I really don’t care.”

  Cameron snorted and told him that unless he wanted to walk to Lexington, he was listening to her explanation of Marvel comics, so Jasper reminded him that he was an obnoxious asshole. And Selena regretted saying anything at all.

  Lexington wasn’t as easy as Des Moines, mostly because Mike Jensen wasn’t even home. After talking to his roommate,
they found out he was a college student and worked weekends at Best Buy, but they also found out that there were two Best Buys in Lexington, Kentucky by going to the wrong one.

  By the time they walked through the doors of the right store, Cameron was threatening to smite Jasper again, Badb was threatening to turn into a crow again, and Doug was threatening to run away with the Norse after all.

  After asking a manager to direct them to Mike Jensen, they found the scrawny college-aged young man in the back of the store trying to explain to a middle-aged man that their warranties didn’t cover dropping smartphones in toilets. Unlike Jonathan, Mike looked relieved to see the crowd approaching him and offering him rescue from what was almost certainly a story he did not want to hear.

  Cameron feigned interest in a tablet in the back of the store away from the other shoppers then produced the Sword again. Also unlike Jonathan, Mike’s eyes lit up as he reached for the Sword’s blade.

  “Cool! Dude, is this like some magic trick?” he asked.

  Cameron stepped back and blinked at him. “Dude, it’s real. Don’t touch it, dumbass.”

  “If it’s his, he can touch it,” Badb pointed out.

  “This… sounds like some pervy after school children’s special,” Jasper added.

  Selena snickered and motioned to the Sword. “Do you know whose it is?”

  Mike shook his head then stepped closer to her so he could quietly ask, “My family says we’re descended from gods. I thought they were kinda nuts. Are you all a bunch of gods?”

  “No,” Cameron answered, sending the Sword back to its mystical hiding place. “We’re magicians.”

  Doug clapped the young man on the back and smiled at him. “Any chance you’re the one missing the pot?”

  Mike blinked at him then whispered, “Are you sure you’re not gods?”

  They were still laughing about that two hours and four demigods later.

  “We’re almost halfway through our list,” Selena said. “We’re going to Santa Fe next to see a twenty-nine-year-old woman named Morgan…”

  She looked up from her phone and glanced around, that feeling of unease that had stopped her growing stronger. Cameron and Badb had already moved closer to her, placing their bodies around her like a shield.