Selena scrambled to her feet and tried to search for Ukko again, to summon him and force him to return her friend, but in his current state, still enveloped in so much fear and anger, he was impossible to reach. Selena could sense him, but she didn’t have the power to force him to return to Waco with Anita Granger.
“No,” Selena moaned. “I can’t get her back!” She ran her fingers through her hair and watched the dark gray clouds break apart, revealing a sunny blue sky behind them.
Jasper paced furiously beside her, his hands balled into fists as he glared at the sky. “That bastard just kidnapped her! We have to do something. We have to get her back!”
Selena nodded and was about to try summoning him again when Badb put a hand on her shoulder and spoke her name softly. “Selena, perhaps Ukko is right. Let her go for now. If we live through this and he doesn’t return her, we’ll go looking for her and we will find her.”
“But she wants to be here! She wants to help us and that’s her decision to make, not his,” Selena protested.
Jasper nodded in agreement and folded his arms over his sculpted chest in a defiant stance. “He’s been screwing up her life for thirty years! We’re just going to let him get away with this?”
Athena stood in front of Jasper, mimicking his stance, and scowled back at him. “Yes. Selena brought him here. She and Cameron keep dragging him into our affairs. He didn’t come looking for her, and once here, he saved our lives… even if it was only because he acted to protect Anita. If that’s what it takes for now, she’ll have to play the part.”
“You’re sacrificing one of the sweetest women I’ve ever known!” Jasper yelled.
Athena rolled her eyes and put her sword in the sheath hanging from her belt. “We’re hardly sacrificing her, Jasper. Don’t be so dramatic. She’s with Ukko who probably has her hidden in some super-secret New Pantheon hideout and he’ll have every god and demigod who works for him protecting her. In case you haven’t noticed, letting her go is the biggest mistake that god ever made.”
“Yeah, but… what about what she wants?” Selena protested feebly.
Ares sighed loudly and pointed toward the lake. “Asgard. Let’s go. You’re starting to make me wish I’d stayed dead.”
Doug snorted and walked to the edge of the water, lifting his arms above his head and waving his hand at the water. He tilted his head and called over his shoulder, “I’m waiting on that strong east wind over here.”
Selena smiled and joined him by the edge of the water. “You’re no Charlton Heston.”
Doug lowered his arm and smiled back at Selena. “Is that the key? That guy still alive? Can you get him over here?”
“Uh… no. Dead. He may be in Findias though. Want me to go look for him?”
Ares groaned and pointed to the lake again. “I want you to stop messing around and focus on parting the waters of the lake so we can find the entrance to Asgard. We have Badb, Athena, me, and you. We can do this without Moses or his god or the actor who played either one.”
“I don’t know if there was an actor who played the god in The Ten Commandments,” Selena said.
“That movie is like four hours long,” Jasper complained. “Who can sit through the whole thing to find out?”
“Lake!” Athena yelled. “Asgard!”
“Is stealth part of this mission?” Doug asked. “Because if so, we’ve totally blown our cover and should probably call this off.”
“We got attacked by a dozen water horses and a crazy Irish goddess,” Badb retorted. “I think whomever is left in Asgard already knows we’re here.”
“Part the waters,” Ares sighed.
Selena glanced nervously at the gods, still feeling completely out of place among them and being asked to participate as one of them, but she did as she was asked. The water rushed to two sides, revealing the muddy lake bottom littered with beer cans and broken ice chests and broken pieces of fishing rods. Her chest squeezed painfully at the sight of the mostly intact rod and reel, and she could almost hear Cameron’s voice about the travesty of wasting a good reel or this beautiful day when he could be fishing but was hunting down asshole Norse gods instead.
“Damn it,” Ares muttered. “It’s not here. Let’s move farther down the lake.”
The goddesses and demigods began to follow him, but Selena continued to stare at the muddy floor of the lake as the water slowly collapsed from the walls they’d erected. The entrance had to be here and, somehow, they were missing it.
“Wait,” she called. “If we were in the wrong place, the water horses wouldn’t have attacked us. They reached the original Asgard by crossing Bifröst. There’s obviously no burning rainbow bridge, but what if they created a tunnel?”
“There would still be an entrance,” Athena pointed out. “And there’s nothing here except debris and mud.”
“Or maybe there is and we just can’t see it because we’re not Norse,” Selena argued.
Ares sighed impatiently and shook his head, causing golden curls of hair to fall across his forehead. “They wouldn’t be able to shield it from us. Not on Earth.”
Selena put her hand on her hips and glared at the Greek war god. She tried to remind herself that he was a Greek god, after all. He probably couldn’t help his arrogance. “You just got killed by a water horse. Stop pretending like you rule the world and just give me a minute.”
Ares blinked at her but didn’t snap back at her. He shuffled his weight between his feet and glanced at his sister, who seemed more amused than annoyed by Selena’s sudden confidence. Selena grabbed Doug’s arm and pulled him to the edge of the lake to stand next to her, and the Norse demigod immediately protested.
“This won’t work, Selena. I disowned them. I’m not connected to them anymore.”
“True, but you can’t erase your genes. Even the fates can’t completely erase who we are. Look at me. I’m only supposed to be Tuatha Dé, and yet, my father’s ancestry is still there. You will always be Norse, Doug. And as much as you hate them, we need you to accept that and look for the entrance.”
Doug exhaled slowly and rubbed his eyes but agreed to try. The gods helped Selena push the water that had fallen onto the lakebed back into the walls, and Doug stared at the muddy ground, his eyes roving over the surface, his face contorted in intense concentration.
Tense minutes passed before Doug shook his head and apologized, “Sorry, Selena. It’s not working.”
“Or it’s not here,” Ares mumbled.
“Shut up, Ares,” Athena scolded.
Ares lifted an eyebrow at his sister but shut up.
Doug crossed his arms over his thick chest and bit his lip, his expression shifting from one of intense concentration to one of intense stubbornness. “Give me a few more minutes. If Selena’s right, the biggest obstacle here is how much I hate the Norse and accepting I’ll always be one of them isn’t exactly sitting well with me.”
“Don’t blame you,” Badb murmured.
Selena shot her a “You shut up, too” look and Badb just shrugged at her.
Jasper stepped closer to Selena’s side and leaned closer to whisper, “We’re wasting our time, Selena. Let’s follow the gods, get the Sword, and go rescue Anita.”
Athena shot her demigod a fierce look but Selena sighed and put a hand on his shoulder. “Ok, we’ll move on.”
“Hold on,” Doug ordered. “I don’t see a burning rainbow bridge or anything, but I’m pretty sure that really white dude on the other side of the lake watching us is Heimdallr.”
Selena squinted against the sunlight at the small figure on the opposite shore, who apparently needed neither binoculars nor sunglasses to watch them in return.
“Where the hell did he come from?” Jasper asked.
“Not hell,” Badb sighed. “But close enough.”
Athena snorted and said, “Should we just ask him for the Sword?”
“May as well. He can hear us anyway.”
“True. I’ve always thought he was cursed, not blessed. Who would want to be able to hear and see that well?”
“Bet he’s seen and heard some really messed up shit in his lifetime,” Jasper added.
“I thought you said his powers were just intuition like any other god?” Selena snapped at Badb.
Badb waved her off. “Mostly. He does have better hearing and vision than us, but I said I doubted he could actually hear grass grow and stuff like that. His heightened senses have been exaggerated.”
“Is this really the most important thing we can be talking about right now?” Doug asked.
“Well, he hasn’t invited us over, so yeah,” Selena joked.
“He’s waiting,” Badb responded. “He wants to see if Doug can find the entrance to their new Asgard. If he does, he’ll blow Gjallarhorn to alert the others.”
“And the Norse can hear that damn horn from anywhere in the world. I hate that horn almost as much as I hate water horses,” Ares added.
Selena crossed her arms angrily and snapped, “Thor did not mention that.”
“It’s not like we didn’t know,” Athena reminded her.
“I didn’t know!”
“Well, how are we supposed to know what you don’t know!” she argued.
“From here on out,” Selena argued back, “just assume I don’t know anything!”
“Um… ladies?” Doug interjected uneasily. “I think Heimdallr is standing in front of a bronze door. And that might just be what we came here to find.”
A loud, bellowing sound shook the air around her and Selena had to grab onto Doug’s arm to keep herself from being knocked to the ground again. Doug put his arms around her but even his massive body struggled against the sound waves Gjallarhorn produced. By the time the noise stopped and Selena was able to look across the empty lakebed again, Heimdallr had drawn his sword and had been joined by three other Norse gods, none of whom she could identify from this distance.
As Thor had promised, he and Tyr weren’t among them. And presumably, neither was Odin. But they hadn’t left their new Asgard unattended and they were prepared to fight.
“Selena, stay behind us,” Badb cautioned. “We have no idea how many more gods will be joining them.”
The massive bronze door opened and a tall, magnificent gray horse flew out, its speed far surpassing that of the water horses. Selena stumbled backward, breathless and dizzy, as she quickly counted the steed’s legs. “Eight,” she whispered. “Sleipnir.”
Her eyes quickly rose to the rider and she fell back onto the shore of the lake. The one-eyed god lifted his spear, his face contorted in a murderous rage. Badb hurled herself on top of Selena’s body and called to her Greek allies, “Get him off Sleipnir!”
Odin’s army of gods followed behind him, unable to keep pace with his eight-legged steed. Selena felt Badb’s body tense as she lifted her sword then heard the metallic clanking as she deflected Odin’s spear. Gungnir never fell to the ground. The magical spear returned to Odin’s hand and Sleipnir stopped above the huddled bodies of Badb and the demigoddess she would die to protect.
“You want revenge, old man, then take me,” Badb bartered.
“I’ll take you both,” Odin growled. “Almost five centuries trapped inside that glass castle. You are a disgrace to the gods!”
He lifted Gungnir again and Selena screamed as the spear left his hand. She gripped Badb tighter, hoping she could heal the goddess if the spear pierced her body this time.
Blue flames arced through the air above her and knocked Odin’s spear off course. Badb scrambled to her feet, keeping her body in front of Selena, but she stood taller and braver with a confidence she’d lacked since Loki’s child and gift to Odin had carried him out of the bronze gate. The blue flames arced above her again and she didn’t need to turn around to see him. She felt him and she knew him, and she recognized this sensation. She’d felt it once before when he threatened to kill Ukko and had come so close to murdering Badb.
“Cameron,” she whispered.
Flames erupted at the feet of Sleipnir and the horse whinnied and attempted to jump over them, but the higher Sleipnir jumped, the higher the wall of flames rose. All along the lakebed where Odin’s warriors had met the Greek war gods, flames reached toward the Heavens, creating a tsunami of steam along the walls of water the gods had created.
“Cameron!” Odin shouted. “Put out this fire!”
“Go to Hell,” Cameron responded.
The flames leapt higher and closer to Sleipnir and the horse screamed, an unearthly, terrifying sound that made Selena cower on the ground, clutching her hands over her ears as tightly as she could, but she couldn’t block out the death cries of the glorious beast. She squeezed her eyes closed but mixed with the cries of Sleipnir were the sounds of the gods in the lakebed burning, crying in their own anguish and torment.
Selena thought she may have cried, too. All around her were the echoes of pain and death and hatred and violence, everything she wanted to free her world from, and she had become a part of it. These were the games of the gods, the battlefields of the mighty, the destinies of the chosen. If she accepted the Cauldron, if she became one of the Tuatha Dé, how many years, how many centuries, would she spend tormenting her enemies, playing their games over treasures or islands or land or realms? How many lives would she claim when her entire existence whispered with the purpose of preserving life?
This was the chessboard of the gods, with humans and demigods and weaker gods as pawns, sacrificial victims to protect the king. One wrong move and checkmate: an entire pantheon would disappear forever.
Badb knelt beside her and pulled her hand away from her ear but Selena didn’t want to listen to her anymore than she wanted to listen to the crackling of the fires around her.
“I want to go home,” Selena cried. “I don’t want to be like this!”
“You’re not,” Badb assured her. “And that’s why you’re so special, Selena. Nothing will change you. But we need to hurry. Odin disappeared as soon as Sleipnir burned, and if we don’t get inside Asgard now, the other Norse will have a chance to return and the Battle of the Gods will take place here on Earth where innocent people could get hurt.”
“Because of your games,” Selena insisted. “I should have listened to him. He tried to warn me all those weeks ago, and I wouldn’t listen. But that’s all you do.”
“Selena,” Badb began, reaching for her hand again, but Selena slapped it away.
“No!” she screamed. “I’m going home! To Villa Rica. Find your own damn Sword.”
Selena rose from the ground and had to grab Badb’s arm to keep from falling again. The world darkened and seemed to speed up and she felt her legs collapsing beneath her.
“Selena,” he breathed.
But her name was the last thing she heard among the raging fires that broiled around the lake and within the god she would never be able to separate herself from.