A man, whom Selena was sure wasn’t really a man, dressed in a black suit with dark hair and eyes and olive skin pushed her into a corner of a large, empty room. His vacant expression unnerved her, and she shuddered and wrapped her arms around her stomach.
“Who are you?” she asked him. “You’re a god, but who?”
“And you’re no ordinary demigoddess,” he told her.
“Obviously, I am. I can guess that you’re a god by the simple fact that you somehow transported us out of my motel.”
“Selena,” he purred, “do you think I’m stupid? I can sense you. And you’re no ordinary demigoddess. Why else would I have come for you?”
“I don’t know,” Selena answered weakly. “I still don’t even know who you are.”
The god folded an arm across his stomach and bowed to her. “I am Ninurta, Daughter of Danu.”
Selena shuddered again and backed into the wall. “And what do you want with me? You’re going to invade the Otherworld. I had no intention of trying to stop you.”
“No,” he agreed, “but the Tuatha Dé won’t fight me if the only way to get you back alive is to negotiate with me.”
Oh, no. Cameron. What if Ninurta’s followers came for Cameron, too?
He tilted his head and studied her, a small smile tugging at the corner of his thin lips. “You’re worried about the other demigod?”
Psychic. Goddamn it.
Ninurta laughed and shook his head. “I’m not damning anything. Not right now. Your… friend has been left alone to ensure he will stay on Earth. He’ll have no way of letting your crow goddess know about your abduction. His fate is irrelevant if you are dead, Daughter of Danu. And once the Dagda and Badb have turned over their kingdom, you will die.”
Ninurta waved his hand toward the empty space beside him and a table filled with fruits and breads and wines appeared. “I can be hospitable though,” he said. “You have thirty-two hours left on this planet. Enjoy it.”
Ninurta left through a door rather than vanishing, and Selena stared at the door handle, wondering what kind of enchantment he had on the locks because if he knew so much about her, then he knew she was also telekinetic.
You have thirty-two hours left on this planet.
She didn’t bother looking at the table again. She slid onto the floor and inhaled slowly, deeply, imagining Cameron’s face, the panic and fear and hatred as this unfamiliar god abducted her right in front of him.
He’ll never forgive himself. This will kill him.
If I die, it will kill him anyway. And he will spend eternity blaming himself.
Selena buried her face in her arms and wished their increased power, their unusual connection, had at least come with the ability to communicate with one another telepathically. She could assure him she was still alive for now, even though she had no idea where she was. And she could warn him about what Ninurta had planned. She didn’t know how far Ninurta’s telepathy stretched so she tried not to focus on their ability to travel to the Otherworld without the help of a god, but it may not matter: without her, could he do it on his own?
Holy shit. Could I do it on my own and get away from Ninurta?
She still wasn’t sure how they’d managed to get to the Otherworld before. The first time had been a complete accident, the combination of too much power or the initial result of the fusion of their prophecies beginning. But the second time? Nothing had happened until Cameron started teasing her about the Otherworld then reliving one memory in particular.
The tapestries. It was the memory of being in the Otherworld that pulled us there the second time. Focus on the tapestries.
Selena squeezed her eyes closed and imagined the Dagda’s Cauldron, the way the tapestry appeared to get caught in a breeze as she approached it, the flames lighting beneath the pot and leaping from the weave of the fabric. She recalled the distinct, intoxicating smell that emanated from the Cauldron. She still couldn’t place whatever was inside, but she felt drawn to it, and her stomach rumbled in agonizing anticipation of the magical stew of the Tuatha Dé.
Her fingers remembered touching the tapestry, the expert craftsmanship that Lugh had employed to make such masterpieces. And she thought of Cameron standing beside her, his original concern alleviated by Badb’s assurance that the tapestries wouldn’t hurt her. She brought up every detail of his beautiful face as it filled with wonder when he touched the Spear, the bright blue flames that surrounded the handle and danced beneath his fingertips, the sexy grin he flashed at her as he watched her, too.
Selena heard the doorknob twisting and the door opening, and she jerked her head up. Ninurta stood in the doorway, confusion clouding his features.
“You haven’t touched the food or wine,” he said.
Selena shook her head. “I don’t want it.”
“Selena,” he scolded, “don’t make me force you to drink at least. There’s water on the table as well. I’ll make sure you’re alive on Samhain Eve, so if your plan is to try to die of dehydration in only a day…”
Selena sighed and stopped him. “It’s been like ten minutes. I know gods can be impatient, but…”
“Ten minutes?” he asked. He sounded so genuinely puzzled that Selena didn’t argue with him again.
She pulled her legs closer to her chest and swallowed, only then realizing just how dry her mouth was. “I must have fallen asleep,” she whispered. “How long…”
“Almost eight hours, which means we have exactly one day left until Samhain Eve. Come. If you don’t trust my food and water, we’ll get you some on the way.”
“On the way… to the Otherworld?”
Ninurta scoffed and rolled his eyes. “We aren’t staying in one place too long. I’m not underestimating this friend of yours. I know about Quetzalcoatl, Thor, and Nyyrikki.”
“Oh,” she breathed.
She slowly rose from the floor and grimaced as her legs ached from having spent eight hours in the corner. She grimaced again when she stepped on her right foot and the sharp pinpricks told her the damn thing had fallen asleep. She shot Ninurta an irate glare and pointed to her foot. “Don’t guess you can do something about this?”
He snickered and shook his head. “You’re supposed to be some sort of powerful healing goddess. You do something about it.”
Selena threw her hands in the air and complained, “I can’t! Why does everyone think I can heal myself just because I can heal others?”
“Because that would be logical,” Ninurta answered. He waved his hand toward the table of food and wine and it disappeared.
Selena stepped into the hallway where several other gods she didn’t recognize waited, each one looking at her like she was some sort of mythological curiosity. She felt like some sort of mythological curiosity.
“Don’t guess one of you can make the pain in my foot go away?” she asked.
One of the gods snickered and wondered aloud, “How did the Tuatha Dé ever become so powerful?”
Ninurta shrugged and put his hand on Selena’s back to keep her walking. She tried to move away from him, but he had no intention of allowing her to get far. “I am far less concerned with how they ended up controlling all of the Otherworld than I am with how I am going to take it from them.”
One of the other gods looked Selena over quickly and smiled. “They will have no choice. They are doomed to failure either way.”
“Not necessarily,” Selena insisted. “You could let me live, and they’d have a chance to win it back.”
All of the gods laughed at her for that.
They led her outside where a van that reminded her of the New Pantheon’s idled. She stopped walking and refused to budge. She had the naïve hope that Ukko was inside that van because he’d already made it clear he had no intention of killing her, but when the doors opened, she only saw another unfamiliar god behind the steering wheel.
For once, she wondered if she could possibly figure out how to get Ukko’s attention and alert him to her location. Ninurta clicked his tongue at her and shook his head. “Don’t count on the New Pantheon saving you, Daughter of Danu. For once, they’re outnumbered.”
Selena crossed her arms over her chest and set her jaw. “Stop calling me that. My mother’s name was Cynthia.”
Ninurta smiled and leaned down so that his lips were next to her ear. She could feel his hot breath against her cheek and she suddenly wanted to get inside that van or anywhere else that he couldn’t be so close to her. “But your mother,” he whispered, “is dead. Because you didn’t save her.”
Selena caught her breath as Ninurta stood straight again and nodded toward the other gods. One of them pushed her toward the van and she stumbled but somehow didn’t fall. It felt like someone else’s body that climbed inside the back of the van and fell onto a seat, and when Ninurta sat in front of her and told her they would stop soon for gas and she’d better eat and drink what she was given, it must have been someone else’s voice that agreed.
Because Selena felt eviscerated, emptied, hollow. She had never told anyone, not even Cameron, this darkest secret, her most shameful truth. Her mother had died from a disease she could have healed; she should still be alive. It didn’t matter that she’d only been three. She had let her mother die.
And with those few words, Ninurta didn’t need to kill her body. He’d already murdered her soul.