Cameron grabbed Selena’s wrist then Uscias’s palace disappeared, replaced by a familiar hotel room, but it wasn’t their suite in Waco. She gasped as she remembered the room she and Cameron had escaped from at the W Hotel in New Orleans and her eyes searched the ceiling, but it had most likely long since been repaired.
“Cameron,” she whispered, “my mother…”
She inhaled sharply again when she saw the deadly, inhuman anger had returned to his beautiful, chocolate brown eyes. A loud sigh pulled her focus away from her boyfriend as Ukko stood before them, looking both genuinely aggravated and genuinely curious, most likely about why he’d been brought to their old room in New Orleans.
“She’s one of your descendants?” Cameron demanded.
Ukko’s pale blue eyes flickered briefly to Selena then he looked quizzically at Cameron again. “How did you find out?”
“Oh, my God, it’s true?” Selena shouted.
In his anger, Cameron didn’t even ask her which god, perhaps because the answer was so obvious this time.
“Yes,” Ukko answered. “David is one of my descendants, but Selena is Tuatha Dé. Mostly.”
“Mostly?” Selena squeaked. “What does that mean?”
Ukko unfolded his arms and sighed again, apparently resigning himself to the fact that he couldn’t fight Cameron and was stuck here until the young sun god let him go. Even in her shock, Selena thought it was an ironic twist of fate.
“I mean that demigods who have been chosen to replace gods on a pantheon usually have any genes linking them to other pantheons repressed. In your case, that didn’t happen. It’s partly why you’re so powerful, Selena. All of your ancestors have somehow managed to live on in you.”
Selena stepped back from the Finnish thunder god and whispered, “You.”
Ukko watched her carefully but nodded. “Yes. Me, too.”
“Oh, my God,” Selena groaned again.
The air in the room warmed and a hot wind blew the comforters and pillows from the bed. Ukko stumbled and grabbed the wall, shooting Cameron a sly look. “Why kill me now, Cameron? Simply because you can’t stand the thought of your future children being related to me?”
Ukko’s body slammed into the wall, sending chunks of mortar and wallpaper to the floor.
“Cameron,” Selena begged, “stop this!”
Cameron kept Ukko pinned to the wall but looked at Selena, demanding, “And it wouldn’t come to this eventually anyway? You really think he’ll ever leave you alone?”
“He warned us about Ninurta and Mithra!” Selena pointed out.
“Because he wants to control you!”
“Badb…” Selena breathed. She eyed Ukko who struggled to free himself from the stranglehold against the wall. “Badb has always known, hasn’t she?”
Ukko blinked at her then exhaled impatiently. “Of course she has.”
The winds in the room stilled and Ukko’s body slumped forward. He grabbed the foot of the bed to prevent himself from falling on the floor and stared up at Cameron. “We had a deal, Cameron. I’ve been working on tracking down Alan in exchange for your favor to the New Pantheon. If you break our deal, it puts you in the same league as other traitors like Ninurta. I told you: a god’s word is binding and there are consequences.”
“Mythology is filled with gods breaking their promises,” Cameron hissed. “Pretty sure I’d survive.”
“You’d survive,” Ukko agreed. “But you’d never be the same again.”
“Cameron,” Selena said softly, “you can’t get out of this unless he breaks the agreement first. Besides, we shouldn’t be surprised that he would withhold this information from us. We should be angry at our own pantheon for never telling us.”
Cameron continued to glare at the Finnish thunder god but nodded. “Good point.”
“Oh, shit,” Badb mumbled.
Selena spun around and faced the Irish war goddess, who didn’t seem nearly as confused as she should be as to why she was in an unfamiliar hotel room in New Orleans. She did, however, seem angry that Ukko was in the room with them.
Cameron turned that terrifying gaze on her and demanded, “Were you ever planning on telling us Selena was related to this asshole?”
“Oh… shit…” Badb repeated.
“Badb!” Selena exclaimed.
Badb threw her arms up and attempted to defend herself. “What good would it have done you, Selena? I knew there was a chance you might find out from your mother one day, but I didn’t expect it to be this soon. And knowing your father’s ancestry isn’t going to make your life any easier.”
Selena shook her head slowly. “No, but I still had the right to know.”
“I told you, Selena,” Cameron said, his voice still carrying the venom she wouldn’t let him dispel literally. “This is what the gods do. They all play games, and they use our lives to do it.”
“This isn’t a game!” Badb insisted. “I love Selena, and you know that. I was trying to protect her, but in case you haven’t noticed, Cameron, we gods aren’t perfect either.”
“Do I still need to be here for this?” Ukko asked.
“Shut up,” Cameron snapped.
Ukko sighed but didn’t say anything else.
“And how does lying to her and keeping all sorts of secrets from us protect us?” Cameron shouted at Badb.
Badb’s gray eyes widened and she backed away from the angry sun god. Selena glanced between them, but she hadn’t noticed anything unusual other than Cameron yelling at her, but based on Badb’s reaction, he had done something to the goddess she still loved and wanted to protect as well.
“Cameron,” Badb pleaded, “it won’t help her. I’ve always known Ukko would never harm her. He’s obviously not above kidnapping and coercion, but there are gods out there who want her dead because of who she is and what she means to the Tuatha Dé and he’s not at the top of my priority list right now.”
“No,” Cameron agreed, his voice low and cold. Selena’s stomach felt cold, too. This wasn’t Cameron. This wasn’t the god she knew and loved. She was in this hotel room with a stranger. “The only priority you’ve ever had is your own. For yourself. For what you want.”
Badb moaned and doubled over, gripping the nightstand between the beds. Selena heard Ukko muttering in Finnish, but her eyes were fixed on the beautiful goddess dying before her. Something stirred within her, that same strange sensation that so often whispered hints of familiarity between her and Cameron, only this time, it urged her to act. Save her. Save him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.
Selena dropped to her knees and put her arms around Badb, channeling the healing power she’d used to bring Alan and Anita back from death. But whatever Cameron was doing, whatever power he possessed, was far stronger than her own. After all, she wasn’t yet a goddess. She looked up at her boyfriend, the man she loved so deeply and completely but had been hidden from her somehow, and cried, “Cameron, stop! You’re killing her!”
“They all need to die! It’s the only way you’ll ever be safe. We can’t trust any of them, Selena!”
“Cameron, no!” Selena yelled. “I love her! If you kill her, how could I ever forgive you?”
Cameron blinked at the war goddess then his dark brown eyes slowly focused on Selena. She held her breath as she waited for all of those emotions that didn’t belong in his eyes to clear, for her Cameron to return. He blinked again and inhaled quickly. “Selena…”
Badb groaned again and Selena held her tighter, finally able to heal her now that she no longer had to struggle against a force she couldn’t possibly fight. She heard Cameron moving away from them, but when she looked up at him, he was gone.
Badb placed a plate filled with white chocolate macadamia nut cookies on the table in front of her, but Selena wouldn’t touch them, even though they were her favorite. Her mother squeezed her hand and kissed the top of her head again, but Cameron had left her. He’d disappeared and no one knew where he was. How could she eat or sleep or even care about the Unbreakable Sword and the Norse and this upcoming war without Cameron?
Even the Dagda couldn’t find him. She knew no god whose power exceeded the young sun god’s and if he didn’t want to be found, he would remain lost to them forever.
And the one god whose power might exceed Cameron’s wasn’t coming around to offer his help anytime soon.
Selena pushed the plate of cookies away and put her head in her arms. She’d only thought the day before had been one of the worst of her life. She’d expected Cameron to return as soon as he calmed down, and she’d waited in the Dagda’s palace with Badb, pacing in the great hall as the tapestry of the Cauldron waved and danced before her in its enchantment. When she grew too tired to pace, Badb waited with her in the bedroom she’d shared with him and she pulled each stone from the glass bowl and grouped them by color then size then threw each one across the room until her arm ached and she broke down sobbing. Badb had held her, once again, and let her cry and stayed with her until she fell asleep.
In the morning, the war goddess brought her to Findias to be with her mother. But even Cynthia’s presence couldn’t fill the hole Cameron’s absence had ripped in her soul. Part of her realized she’d been in the Otherworld for over a day now, and time passed so differently, so much slower here, that this window Thor had given them on Earth had almost certainly passed.
But she didn’t care about the Unbreakable Sword.
And she didn’t care about the Cauldron.
All four of the magical island cities seemed to know something tragically disturbing had occurred because even the play between friends, these cattle raids that had been ongoing between the Irish and Egyptians for centuries, had been halted. Aside from Badb and Cynthia, everyone left Selena alone, not even trying to talk to her when they passed her. Even Nemain and Macha kept a respectful distance from the heartbroken demigoddess.
Cynthia began to sing softly to Selena, a lullaby that tickled some memory buried deep inside her. Selena turned her head so she could see her mother’s face, frozen as the beautiful young woman whose every line and curve she’d memorized from photographs. Cynthia smiled sadly at her and paused her song, smoothing the stray strands of Selena’s blonde hair away from her face.
“He’ll eventually come back to you, Selena. He’s ashamed. And shame is one of the most powerful emotions in the world.”
“But he knows what’s coming. He knows the Norse and Slavs will invade soon and without him, we’ll lose. And I’ll die.”
“I don’t know him, but Badb seems to think he’ll never let that happen.”
“But, Mom, he left me!” Selena cried.
“I know. He ran away from a situation that scared him, just like your father ran away from me.”
“David never returned,” Selena pointed out.
“No,” Cynthia agreed. “He didn’t.”
Cynthia sighed and pulled the plate of cookies toward her, although she didn’t touch them either. “I wish I’d never said anything about him. I knew Ukko headed the New Pantheon, of course, but I had no idea he’d been after you, too.”
A sobbing laugh broke free from Selena and she wiped her eyes and sat up. “Who isn’t after me?”
Cynthia offered her that sad smile again and shrugged. “This is just another world. We demigods go on living, in a way, but unless Uscias or a living god tells us what’s going on with our loved ones on Earth, we have no way of knowing. Even the gods who’ve died and live here are cut off. Uscias is the only one who lives here that has one foot in both worlds.”
“You know how you told me I wasn’t allowed to feel guilty about your death?” Selena asked. “Well, you’re not allowed to feel guilty about the choices Cameron’s making now. Anita assured me becoming a god wouldn’t change him, but Mom, this isn’t Cameron. The man I fell in love with would have never hurt Badb and he would have never threatened to kill Ukko unless Ukko was trying to abduct me again.”
Cynthia picked up a cookie and nibbled at it then put it back down, staring at the plate thoughtfully. “Maybe it was the shock? After finding out you’ve been running from this god for three years and you’ve had to escape from him more than once, I can imagine it was pretty horrible to find out you’re related to him.”
“It’s…” Selena stared into her mother’s pale blue eyes, so much like her own, and searched for the right words. Shocking didn’t even begin to convey the fear and anger and sense of disgust she’d felt when she’d learned about her father’s ancestry, but it seemed such an insignificant concern compared to Cameron’s abandonment.
“I don’t understand it,” Selena sighed. “Ukko said when a new demigod is chosen to replace a god, any genes tying it to other pantheons should be suppressed, like they don’t even exist. But for some reason, he knew I was descended from him as well as Dian Cécht.”
“What did Badb say?”
“She claims she doesn’t know why, and this time, I believe her. She was pretty upset yesterday, too. She also claims it doesn’t matter because my ties to the Tuatha Dé are so much stronger. But she noticed this about me the first time she met me, and that’s why some of the gods didn’t believe she’d found the right person at first. Between my strange nature and Cameron’s cavalier attitude about the whole thing, I’m surprised more gods didn’t doubt her.”
“Hm, any chance you have some Norse genes hanging out in there, too?” Cynthia teased.
Selena wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “If so, they’re definitely from David’s side.”
Cynthia laughed and hugged her daughter. A soft rapping knock on the door startled them both, and Selena lifted her head to see Badb standing in the doorway, her gray eyes still filled with the same sense of heartache and worry and fear she’d carried since Cameron’s confrontation with her the day before. “I have to go to Anita and Jasper. I doubt we can still reach Asgard as weeks have likely passed, but I still have to help them find the Unbreakable Sword. Uscias will make sure you have anything you need while you’re here with your mother, and Macha and Nemain will stay to guard you…”
“No,” Selena said, the conviction in her voice surprising her as well as Badb and her mother. She pushed her chair away from the table and stood up. “I’m going with you.”
“No, you’re not,” Badb responded with just as much conviction. “It’s far too dangerous. You are staying here.”
Selena crossed her arms and scowled at her friend. “You can’t make me. And I’m pretty sure I can get us back to Waco before the Norse return from Russia.”
“I don’t care,” Badb insisted. “I’m not going to risk losing you.”
“This isn’t your decision. You can’t stop me, you know.”
“Selena, don’t do this,” Badb pleaded. “We need you.”
“If you’re hurt or almost killed again, I’m the only one who can save you. I’m going.”
Badb grunted then looked at Cynthia and gave her a beseeching look. “Reason with your daughter.”
“Sounds like she’s made up her mind, Badb. And trust me. I know this look because she gets it from me. Neither one of us will be able to change her mind now.”
“But Selena, you don’t even care about the Sword right now!” Badb insisted.
“True, but I care about you. And I’m not willing to lose anyone else I love.”
Badb groaned and rubbed her forehead. “Why do men have to be such a pain in the ass?” she complained.
Selena shrugged. “Maybe we should ditch Jasper and take care of this Unbreakable Sword hunt ourselves. Get the Dagda to figure out how to let my mother return to Earth. She fought cancer. You don’t get any tougher than that.”
Badb snickered and smiled at Cynthia. “I don’t disagree with you, Selena, but we’re gods. Even we can’t perform miracles of that sort.”
“So you’ve got a twenty-six year old healer, a middle-aged psychic, and a Greek demigod who would rather be just about anywhere than helping a bunch of Irish find an old sword,” Cynthia sighed. “What could possibly go wrong?”
Badb shook her head as if to say, “Don’t even ask,” but Selena had grown tired of listening to their reasons for her to remain behind in the Otherworld. Even though her soul begged for the respite of unawareness, of some sort of deep sleep or curse in which she would never have to know that half of her had vanished, she refused to allow Badb to confront the Norse alone. Without Cameron, they would both likely die, but she could live in her afterlife with the knowledge that she’d done all she could to save the goddess she’d befriended and loved.
Selena grabbed her hand and glanced over her shoulder at her mother, giving her one last sorrowful smile. “I love you, Mom. I’ll see you soon.”
Then she crossed the veil from the Otherworld to Earth and stared out over the tranquil waters of Lake Waco.