“People still worship him?” I asked in surprise.
“Yes, but they don't give him human sacrifice anymore,” Odin said pointedly. “Whatever he's trying to do, it requires more power than he's been given. So, he brought his snakes here and set them loose.”
“All the way from Africa,” I murmured. “Why?”
“Maybe he didn't want to kill his own people,” Hekate said. “Or maybe he killed some there and moved on.”
“Just enough so that the humans didn't get spooked.” Hades nodded in agreement. “Torrent, can you—”
“I'm on it,” Torrent cut off Hades. Then his expression hardened. “There is a distinct trail of snake-related deaths leading from Uganda, across Africa, and then Brazil. From there, they moved upward until they hit Texas.”
“And we're only now becoming aware of it,” I whispered in horror. “How many people are dead because we didn't catch on quickly enough? And it wasn't even us who caught it, it was Austin.”
“We can't watch every god all of the time, Carus,” Azrael said gently.
“I know,” I muttered. “I just... damn.”
“But why?” Blue asked.
We looked at him askance.
“How many deaths have there been, Torrent?” Blue posed another question instead of answering our unspoken one.
“Thousands,” Torrent said grimly.
“What would one god do with that much energy?” Blue countered with yet another question. “What wouldthis godwant badly enough to slaughter that many people?”
“It's humiliating,” I murmured, then met Blue's gaze. “That's what you said: that it would be humiliating to hop around like that. And that's just one of the issues he has to live with. So, what would an earthbound god who only has half a body want? He'd want to be whole and free.”
“But to do that, he'd have to break the magic of human belief,” Sarasvati, Brahma's wife pointed out disdainfully. “No god is stupid enough to attempt that.”
“Why not?” I asked. “I mean, I know you can't change certain things because of human belief but if you had enough magic and did the impossible—if you managed to bypass human belief—what would happen?”
“It's unprecedented,” Thor muttered. “There's no way to know.”
“If I had to guess.”—Odin shared a heavy look with his son—“I'd say it would, at the very least, destroy the god.”
“And at the very most?” I asked.
“It would destroyallof the Gods.”
Chapter Thirty
“So, how do we find this guy?” I asked the Squad after the outburst that Odin's statement prompted had died down.
“He can't be too far from where you last saw him,” Torrent pointed out. “He's limited to traveling by human means or hopping.”
“Or slithering,” Finn reminded us. “That's the way I'd go if I were him.”
“The tunnels.” Odin nodded. “They're probably his fastest means of travel.”
“But most of us can't go into the tunnels,” Thor pointed out. “And if we can't do that, how do we track him? Vervain, Trevor, and Kirill are our best hunters and none of them can access the tunnels.”
“I tracked the snakes,” Viper reminded us.
“Yes, but can you track aparticularsnake?” Thor shot back. “How good is your sense of smell? Or is it taste?” Thor smirked.
“Oh, look at you. You made a joke,” I teased Thor. “Good for you.”
