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.
“Where is he?” Badb hissed.
“Coming from the north,” Cameron answered.
Selena groaned when she finally realized who they were talking about and why she’d experienced such a sudden discomfort.
Thor was approaching their group.
Oddly, though, he seemed to be alone, so Badb and Cameron kept their weapons hidden. Selena noticed Jasper and Doug reach discreetly for the guns they always carried with them, but neither pulled them out of their holsters. Everyone waited to see why the Norse god had tracked down their group.
Thor’s massive frame finally appeared before them, his reddish-brown hair and beard slightly disheveled and his gray eyes searching his surroundings as if he knew he were doing the unthinkable yet again: conspiring with the enemy.
“This had better not be about the Sword, Thor,” Badb warned. “We made a deal.”
Thor shook his large head quickly. “No. And you lived up to your end and returned Mjölnir for which I’m grateful. As far as anyone knows, you found New Asgard on your own and broke in. All-Father is furious, particularly about the death of Sleipnir, and he will be seeking vengeance for that as well as his imprisonment.”
Cameron just shrugged. “Odin can kiss my ass. Why are you here?”
Thor’s thick fingers reached up to his chin and scratched through the rough texture of his beard. “Something is… strange about some of our demigods. When we recruited Avery, we’d hoped to finally have another powerful psychic in our ranks, but I’ve begun to think she’s not being honest with us.”
“Whoa,” Cameron interrupted. “First of all, you figured this out on your own?”
Selena laughed when Thor actually flipped him off.
“And secondly,” Cameron continued as if he were flipped off by Norse gods all the time, “why did you come to us? We’re your enemies, remember?”
Thor nodded then sighed. “Because no one will listen to me. They think I’m being overly cautious and they keep insisting our own blood wouldn’t betray us. If they did, they’d be as disconnected from us as Doug. And why are you even here, Doug?”
Doug ignored him.
“They’re demigods,” Badb pointed out, also ignoring Thor’s comment about Doug’s presence with them. “The rules are different for them. They’re not obligated to keep their allegiance to their family.”
Thor just lifted a shoulder at her. “It’s not just Avery,” he said. “I’ve had my doubts about Quinn, but especially now that All-Father is back, he just tells me to do what I do best: kill on the battlefield and keep my mouth shut in the hall.”
“Man, Odin’s an asshole,” Cameron mumbled.
Thor shot him a fierce look, but he hadn’t come to fight this alliance. He’d come looking for answers. And Selena wanted to provide them, not because she cared about helping the Norse, but because she realized they had a common enemy and it might be the only way to defeat him.
“Quinn and Avery are betraying you,” she told him. “They’ve betrayed us as well. They’ve been working for Huitzilopochtli for years, finding gods and demigods to sacrifice to him so he could become more powerful.”
Thor’s bushy rusty brown eyebrows pulled together as he glanced between Selena and Badb. “Huitzilopochtli? I thought he was dead.”
“We all did,” Badb responded. “I think his own pantheon thought he was dead. It certainly seemed that way when we battled Quetzalcoatl and his…”
“Don’t say army,” Cameron warned.
Badb rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. “Friends,” she finished.
“Are you sure?” Thor asked.
“Um… pretty sure,” Cameron said. “He was standing right in front of us and threw me across an apartment complex’s yard. And Quinn was definitely with him because I threatened to kill the bastard.”
“And you couldn’t?” Thor asked incredulously.
Cameron looked at Badb uneasily then shook his head. “Huitzilopochtli protected his demigods. And I couldn’t touch him.”
“How is that possible?” Thor stammered. “Even if you’d been alone, you killed his brother when you were only a demigod!”
“Yeah, I remember,” Cameron shot back, “but weren’t you listening? This sick psycho has been harvesting the hearts of gods and demigods for years, maybe even centuries. He can’t do what Mithra does, so he found a way around it: he’s subsuming others’ powers by literally taking it out of them.”
Thor opened his mouth but no words came out. He pressed his lips together and reached through his thick beard again to scratch at his chin. “And now he wants your heart?” Thor finally asked.
Cameron inhaled slowly and slipped his hand around Selena’s. “No. He wants hers, but preferably after she’s a goddess, which is why her ex-boyfriend, who also works for Huitzilopochtli, didn’t bring her to him sooner. We don’t know how they knew she was destined to be a goddess, but he must have known and he wanted her at her most powerful so he could essentially grant himself immortality.”
Thor shook his head slowly. “Even if I could convince All-Father this is true, it won’t change his mind. He’s focused only on revenge right now. I think, though, Huitzilopochtli must be up to something far more dangerous than trying to take the Otherworld from you.”
“Yes,” Badb agreed quietly. “He wants to control this world.”
Cameron squeezed Selena’s fingers as his expression transformed, displaying his fear for her. “And we may be helpless to stop him.”