Quetzalcoatl’s serpentine body rose from the water, his crimson eyes immediately settling on Selena. His long, forked tongue slithered between his teeth, so foreign in the mouth of a giant snake, and Selena shuddered and backed farther away from the river. Cameron’s arms wrapped around her protectively as they watched the massive god lift himself onto the bank of the river.
“You’re not taking her,” Cameron warned, “so let’s… talk?”
The feathered reptile made a hissing noise that sounded suspiciously like laughter.
“I don’t think he’s in the mood for negotiating,” Selena whispered.
“It was worth a shot,” Cameron whispered back.
Quetzalcoatl had already witnessed their constant bantering and he apparently wasn’t confused or intrigued by it this time. He lunged forward, his giant jaws opened, and Selena’s legs felt weak. All she could see were the massive teeth, its hollow throat that stretched and could easily consume a grown man. And he was aiming for Cameron.
Selena screamed and tried to use her telekinesis to knock Quetzalcoatl back into the river, but it was as ineffective as they’d feared it would be. It didn’t even slow him down. Cameron let go of her and ducked as the gaping mouth of the feathered serpent bent toward him then punched the side of his head. It seemed to sting Quetzalcoatl or maybe just surprised him, because he lifted his head and turned those angry, bloodthirsty eyes on Cameron again.
Quinn and the others attempted to distract Quetzalcoatl by pelting his tail and midsection and trying to drag him away, but they were powerless against a god. With one swipe of his long feathered tail, the demigods were sent flying either into the river or into the woods, and Selena’s heart dropped as she watched them scatter.
“God, Cameron, we’re all going to die! What should we do!” she yelled.
Cameron didn’t even have time to give her his cut-that-shit-out look. Quetzalcoatl lunged at him again, his jaws gaping, his throat opening, preparing to accommodate the large meal before him.
“Somebody help us!” Selena screamed. She didn’t know who she was screaming to or appealing to for help, but her telekinesis still did nothing. She couldn’t even knock Cameron out of the way; Quetzalcoatl had immobilized them, his own power weakening their gifts. Cameron gave her one last look, a sad and remorseful expression that Selena couldn’t interpret, then he closed his eyes, resigned to his fate.
The cawing of a crow startled them all, even Quetzalcoatl. It had been loud, like the crow had somehow stumbled upon an amplifier and was playing with it, but its cawing repeated, shrill and angry. With Quetzalcoatl momentarily distracted, Cameron stepped away from its cavernous jaws and bumped into Selena, who was frozen in the same place as she’d prepared to watch the death of a man she knew she was already falling in love with even though she was desperately trying to avoid it.
The crow’s incessant cawing continued and as Quinn and Jasper swam to the bank of the river, they kept turning their heads to try to place its source as well. Quetzalcoatl’s serpent form suddenly vanished, replaced by a handsome man with long black hair and smooth unblemished copper skin. His eyes settled on a tree above Selena and narrowed.
“Badb,” he hissed. “At least be goddess enough to show yourself.”
The crow cawed in return.
“Badb,” Selena whispered, awe struck, and her eyes searched the tree but couldn’t find the crow that Quetzalcoatl was talking to.
“Who’s that?” Cameron whispered back.
“One of the goddesses who forms the Morrígna,” Selena explained. As she spoke, the crow flew down from the branches and landed on the ground in front of Cameron and Selena, cocking its head to the side as one yellow eye studied them. Selena heard Quetzalcoatl make another hissing noise and she chanced a brief glance in his direction, his murderous gaze on the black bird, his nostrils flaring, his fists clenched.
“You’re a coward,” Quetzalcoatl spit out. The crow turned its head in his direction and the black shape rose, growing in form until an old woman stood before them, her shoulders slightly stooped, her skin weathered and wrinkled, her gray hair hanging in straggly strands. Her eyes remained as beady as the birds, and they were fixed on Quetzalcoatl.
She pointed a crooked finger at him and warned him, “Call me that again, Reptile.”
Quetzalcoatl’s chest swelled with anger but he didn’t repeat his accusation. “You have no business here. This doesn’t concern you.”
That long, slender finger turned away from Quetzalcoatl and lingered on Cameron then Selena. “They concern me.”
Quetzalcoatl’s dark eyes finally left the old woman and he looked at Cameron and Selena now. “They’re Tuatha Dé,” he sneered.
“Which means they are mine,” Badb screeched. “You…” She pointed that long, crooked finger at him again. “You threaten our clan and you’ll bring war upon all of your kind.”
Quetzalcoatl laughed, a hissing, slithery laugh that made Selena’s skin crawl again. “Wage war against them,” Quetzalcoatl answered. “What do I care?” He tilted his head and studied the old woman, a conniving smile at his lips. “Where are your sisters, Badb? How quickly the mighty fall.”
Badb cackled – actually cackled – and Selena looked up at Cameron to see what he thought of their rescuer. Badb didn’t terrify her like Quetzalcoatl did, but she still didn’t feel any magical connection like she’d always expected. Judging by the way Quinn and Jasper were staring at Badb though, she suspected she and Cameron were the only ones who weren’t frightened of her, so maybe it meant something after all? And Badb had come to rescue them.
Of course, if word was out among the gods now that she was a powerful healer, they may all be competing to capture her for themselves, and Badb could be lying about Selena and Cameron being part of her clan.
Badb shook her head at Quetzalcoatl and nodded toward the river. “Go. Or I will slay you now. I will bring such a gruesome death upon you…”
“Oh, all right!” Quetzalcoatl interrupted. “If you want war then… tell the Tuatha Dé they can have it. Seven days.”
Quetzalcoatl didn’t slide back into the river. He simply disappeared.
Badb blew a frustrated breath through her lips then put her bony hands on her hips. Her long black robe swished under the movement of her arms. She turned those beady eyes on Cameron and Selena. “Come,” she ordered. “Two of your friends are hurt.”
Badb turned on her heels and started walking toward the woods and Cameron just shrugged and followed her. Selena blinked at their backs then shrugged, too, and followed them both. Quinn threw two soggy arms in the air but wasn’t about to argue with the old woman. All of the demigods followed her into the woods to look for the two others who had been hurt.
Selena knew one of the missing demigods must be Avery and she tried to remember the name of the young man, but after a lifetime with so few people moving in and out of her personal circle, she struggled to recall names of people she’d only just met. She could see the demigod’s face, a young man in his early twenties with light brown hair and the ability to command water, and she could easily recall Avery’s appearance, a woman in her mid-thirties with a short brown bob and a smattering of light freckles across her cheeks and nose. Oddly enough, she was connected to Thor, not Quinn, but Avery hadn’t inherited the storm god’s ability to control lightning and wind. Instead, she had developed a powerful ability to read minds.
But the man’s ability to control water could be potentially devastating and she had witnessed what an actual storm god could do. She doubted this young man had the ability to conjure hurricanes or tidal waves at his command like Ukko could produce powerful and destructive storms, but it was a frightening prospect for so many to wield so much power.
What was his name?
Badb looked over her shoulder at her and those beady eyes quickly ran the length of her body. “Your mind is full of thoughts, girl,” Badb said.
“Isn’t everyone’s?” Selena asked.
Badb turned around again and nodded. “But yours are troubled.”
“Given our circumstances, I’d think we all have minds filled with troubled thoughts,” Quinn mumbled.
Badb stopped walking and pointed that long, slender finger at him. “These two have befriended you because they don’t know any better. You’re Norse. You’re lucky I am respecting their alliance with you. Don’t speak.”
Badb let her finger drop and immediately started walking again. Quinn turned his wide, worried eyes to Cameron and Selena, but neither of them had any clue what the old woman meant by that. Selena didn’t want to anger the goddess so she started walking again and picked up her pace to catch up to her. She heard the crunching of leaves and twigs beneath their shoes but nobody dared speak now.
“Here,” Badb pointed, “the other Norse.” She spit the word out as if it had left a bitter taste in her mouth. Selena ran into the growth of trees where she spotted the woman’s body, lying near the base of a tree, bruised and bloody. Avery was breathing but she wasn’t moving. Quinn rushed past her and fell at Avery’s side, his large hands hovering above her body, afraid to touch her but desperately wanting to help her. Selena had just learned they had been a couple for years. Quinn turned his round, freckled face up to her, his eyes begging her to do something.
Selena knelt on Avery’s other side and put her hands on her arm. She immediately felt her heart beating, her lungs expanding and filling with air, the electrical pulses in her brain trying to communicate but struggling from disrupted communications. A concussion. Selena left one hand on her arm and with her other hand, she lightly brushed her fingertips across the woman’s forehead, pushing loose strands of her ash brown hair out of her face. A new feeling registered. Pain.
Selena looked at Avery’s leg then closed her eyes, concentrating on the calming, ritualistic nature of healing another person. There was nothing movie worthy about the process at all: no bright lights flashed from Avery’s body; she didn’t have to envision healing each broken part of her; it didn’t even take long. Selena simply let whatever was in her flow into this woman, and Avery moaned and rolled onto her back.
Cameron moved quickly to her side, helping her sit up, but Selena knew she would be fine. She was more dazed now than anything else. She let go of her arm and stood up, and Avery looked up at her, grateful and amazed.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Selena smiled at her, feeling as grateful as she always did after healing someone for this incredible power to save lives but overwhelmed with guilt because she had so little chance to use it. How many lives could she save if she were allowed to admit to the world who she was and what she could do? “You’re welcome.”
Avery looked at Badb and started to ask who the old woman was but Quinn quickly shushed her. “She doesn’t like the Norse,” he warned.
Avery’s eyebrows rose in surprise but she just nodded and let Quinn help her stand. Quinn kept an arm around her, a loving and affectionate gesture of a man who had almost lost what was most important to him, and Selena stared at the ground to concentrate on anything other than the painful reminder of the wastefulness of her life and this powerful gift.
Badb’s beady eyes danced between Selena and the woman and she finally let them linger on the healed Norse demigod. “What’s your name?” Badb demanded.
“Avery,” she answered, though she sounded a little defensive about it and Selena couldn’t blame her.
“Hm,” Badb muttered, “at least the other one isn’t Norse.”
“Why do you hate the Norse so much?” Cameron asked.
Badb waved him on so they would follow her again. “Explain later. When you and Selena are alone.”
“Badb?” Selena asked softly. The old goddess turned her head but didn’t slow down. Her expression seemed to soften just a little every time her eyes settled on Selena or Cameron, but Selena thought maybe she was only seeing something she wanted to see, and Badb had as little regard for them as anyone else. “What are you going to do about this war and Quetzalcoatl’s warning? Do you think he was serious?”
“Of course. And we will fight him. I don’t know how many of his clan are left because some of them aren’t allowed in the Otherworld at all. Don’t worry, Granddaughter. We beat them…”
Selena tripped over a rotten branch and Cameron kept her from falling into the soft earth of the forest floor. “I don’t think she meant that literally. Right?” he asked.
Badb laughed, a slightly different laugh than the cackle from earlier, this one more good-natured and filled with her amusement. “Not literally my granddaughter, no. Not even close.” Badb’s thin gray eyebrows pulled together as she thought about something then her bony hand waved in the air as if she were trying to erase a puzzling thought. “My grandfather was the brother of your ancestor. Maybe. That is our connection.”
A laugh escaped Selena’s throat and Badb raised one thin gray eyebrow at her. “Sorry, but even you don’t know why there’s so much confusion over Dian Cécht’s parentage?”
Badb shrugged, that long black robe shifting and ruffling with her movements. “Long time ago. Who can remember?”
She waved them on and Cameron grinned at Selena who gave him a what’s-so-funny look in return. “Your ability to pull up family trees like that is kinda hot,” he said. “Which I mean in a non-creepy-don’t-let-this-get-awkward kind of way.”
Badb looked over her shoulder again, her beady eyes sending the clear message of “Who the hell do you think you’re kidding?”
Selena swatted at the omnipresent mosquitoes and ducked under a low hanging branch then followed Badb’s finger as she pointed to the other injured demigod. The young man was conscious, trying to lay still and quiet because he didn’t know who had approached him, but he was hurting and his breaths were ragged.
Selena hurried to his side and dropped to her knees, putting her hands on his bare arm. Cameron knelt on his other side and tried to keep the mosquitoes from inflicting more welts on the poor guy.
Broken rib. Punctured lung. Fractured wrist.
Like a diagnostic reading, his list of injuries filtered into her mind and as she watched the young man squint and moan from pain, she noticed Cameron moving in her peripheral vision. He pulled off his gloves then rested his hand gently on the young man’s other arm. Selena heard Badb muttering behind her, but she was no longer speaking English. And then the world exploded around her, and Selena blacked out.