Loki had collapsed the moment Mir set him on the edge of the bed, Morgane turning on her heel right behind Mir, intending to follow him out, before Loki caught her wrist in a firm grip. “Stay.” He murmured.
“I should go home,” she protested.
“You should stay,” he countered.
In the end, she stayed. Now she was left staring out these soaring windows, wondering why she was even here, while he watched her with sleepy, hooded eyes, pushed up against the headboard.
He was exhausted. She had questions.
He was pissed off. She’d probably just made the biggest mistake of her life.
But by the time she worked up enough courage to pad across the thick rugs to ask him about this stupid bargain, the slippery woman, he’d passed out, and now, up close he looked so damn…young. Vulnerable, even.
Morgane nestled herself beside him. And now, hours later, here she was, still wrapped around him. For a while, he slept quietly in her arms, such peace on his beautiful face, she could only stare before laying him down and moving back to the window.
To watch the creatures of the night. The whores and the vagrants and the drunks and the demons feeding on them. She once speculated what it would feel like to look down upon all the world and wonder how it had all gone so wrong.
And here she was.
Demons. Purgatory. Immortals. Gods.
She may have dipped her toes in the waters of the supernatural, coming here to kill the monsters for revenge, but now? She was drowning under miles of the unknown. Loki. Odin. Mir. She’d studied these names, once. These were Norse names. Mythological names. Scattered through her memories of a half-forgotten literature class, they were the old gods, worshiped by pagans. Yet thousands of years later, the legends remained. Odin, the All Father. Loki, the Trickster. Mir, God of Knowledge. Her thoughts strayed back again and again to that damn woman. At what Odin said.
“I do not rule over the realm of Death.”
Despite herself, a bone deep shudder shook Morgane.
What Morgane glimpsed in those dark eyes, the eyes that did not reflect a single bit of the light in that white hall, was cruelty incarnate. Honed over centuries. Eons. Practiced and perfected in ways that Morgane wagered she loved every second of. “I can. I will grant your wish, human.”
She watched the river of red and white lights flow beneath her, drifting past as her thoughts did, one after another, each more disturbing than the last. All this power flying around, how had she gotten caught up in it? She’d been minding her own business, for chrissakes, until two nights ago. And now look at her.
Padding back across the room, she settled down into bed and waited for the sun to rise. Tracing the planes of Loki’s face, wondering why. Why had he picked her up off the pavement that night? Why not just leave her, like his friend had suggested? Why even bother?
It had been a long time since she had thought of anything besides revenge. Or survival. And as the sun rose, as she watched it paint the lake mist gold, as she watched the man sleeping beside her, wondering why he’d thought her worth saving, she realized it was the first day she’d woken not thinking of her mother.
Or her sister.
But of someone else.
Hel, Goddess of the Dead.
14
For a second, the world seemed to catch on Loki’s eyes as they opened, the sleep-dimmed aqua pools narrowing as they discovered her beside him. When he finally focused, a lazy, sexy smile curving his mouth, a selfish part of her wanted to taste that smile in all of its sweet, sensual glory.
“Hey there,” she said as he smiled up at her. “Welcome back.”
“Morgane?” He was still fuzzy, and underneath the layer of confusion in his eyes, a what-the-hell-happened kind of intensity to him as he worked backwards through everything, starting with waking up next to her in his bed.
“Yep, it’s me. Great view from up here.” Since she couldn’t help herself, she settled for brushing a strand of hair off his face, in order to see those eyes a bit better. “You know what? You’re sort of nice to wake up to.”
“It’s nice to wake up. I didn’t think…” The words trailed off as he blinked and took her in. “You’re blonde now?”
She ran her fingers through the long, golden tresses. “Yeah pretty close, I think, to what my natural color is. I don’t… Sometimes it’s hard to remember those things. It seemed like a good idea to change my appearance occasionally, you know, just in case.”
Still, he just stared as if he was seeing all of her, down to her very soul. “Shit. You brought me back, didn’t you? You really did it.”
Morgane held his gaze until the silence stretched out between them.
Eyes full of apology, he murmured, “I think we’d better talk. There’s some things…I probably should have told you before.”
“Okay.” She breathed, wishing to delay the inevitable. Savoring the sight of him, alive, the smell of him, alive, beside her for just a little longer. “Okay. I woke up in the infirmary. So let’s start with how I got back here last night?”
In a flat, level voice, he began, “I followed you from your new apartment when you went out hunting. Lost you for a few minutes when you ducked down the stairs to lower street level, but I picked up your scent again right after they attacked you. By then you didn’t have much time left, and I knew your only chance was Mir and his magic, so I did what I had to do. Odin discovered Mir healing you and was pissed off. Really pissed off.” He spread his hands helplessly. “He’d ordered me never to see you again, you see. He dragged me to the Throne Room and threw me through the portal, into the darklands. And you pretty much know more than me from that point on.”
Her breathing shallowed out at the memory. The blood gushing. The endless, awful gashes, his moans of pain…
She fought to keep her voice light, playful. “Well, we got you back in the end, so it’s all good. How did you even find me? I do a damn good job of hiding. Or so I thought.” Part of her marveled at how easily he had found her. Another part of her resented the hell out of him for it.
“Maybe I looked for the shittiest apartment in the shittiest neighborhood.” A smile quirked his mouth.
“Har har.” But her mouth went dry. “Seriously. How did you find me so fast?” Because if he had found her, and the demons had found her, was anywhere in this city safe anymore?
It was Loki’s turn to shrug. “I’d been watching you from the moment you left your old apartment with the U-Haul. Out of the four places you looked at, I have to say, you picked the best one strategically. And good call on the door, it’s the only way to keep them out. This place”—he indicated the stone sarcophagus surrounding them—“was built with enough steel and stone to keep out an army of the little bastards. Plus, Mir’s added security gives us an extra layer of protection.”
Her mind went back to that night. “About that army. There were so many,” she murmured. “Too many. I’ve seen them hunt in pairs normally. Sometimes threes and fours. But I couldn’t count them that night, there were so many. Twice, now, and that can’t be a coincidence.”
Loki pushed up against the headboard so they sat facing one another. “I know. By the time I reached you, you’d already taken out nine. Tyr, Fen, and I got another twenty or so pulling you out of there. I thought…” Studying her, her heart stuttered to a stop as he said, “It was as if they were sent to find you. To hunt you specifically.”
That.
That had been her final, horrible thought as she had sunk to her knees, slashing futilely away. That it hadn’t been chance or a mistake but rather some sort of plan had brought so many of them to that underpass last night. That they had come there for her. To kill her.
Why though? She was a nobody.
“We’ve been fighting them for centuries, Morgane.” The way he rolled her name off his tongue made it sound practically exotic. “But of late, there has been an uptick in activities.”
“More monsters?”
“More mons
ters. Tyr’s attributing it to more tourists, but now I’m not so sure. Plus, I’ve never seen them hunt one specific human before, not like they did with you. It’s as if something’s changed.”
“Changed how, exactly?”
Loki scrubbed his face. “I’m assuming you’re ready to hear what I have to say since you’re still here this morning.” He placed a hand gently under her chin, tilted her head up. “And because of the circles under your eyes, you spent most of the night awake. Wondering?”
“Mir filled me in on some of it. I think I’ve figured out a few other things. But yes, it would be nice if I heard the rest from you.” Morgane clasped her hands together. Mostly so they would stop shaking. “And do me a favor, don’t gloss anything over. Since I’m stuck in the middle of this, I think I’d best know the truth.”
When the silence stretched between them, she prodded, “You don’t have to tell me your deepest, darkest secrets, Loki, but you have to give me something. Anything you can tell me might help. Especially with Odin and this deal of ours.” Still, Loki hesitated as if waiting would delay the inevitable. “Only the truth,” she explained, “will help me decide what my next move should be. So no skimming over any ugly details, and no trying to protect me from—”
“Our next move,” he corrected gently. “The bargain is already made. If there was anything I could have protected you from, it would have been that.” Loki flexed the fingers on his hand that, hours ago, had been crushed completely, as if to confirm they still worked. “I didn’t expect a sacrifice from you,” he said finally. “I didn’t want it.”
“Well,” Morgane started, testing out the weight of the words, “I couldn’t let you go. Not like that. Not when Mir said there was still a chance. I’ve buried three people in my life already, and I wasn’t about to bury a fourth. Not to mention, I always pay my debts. Always have, always will.” She felt a shaky weakness, probably from not sleeping. Definitely from almost dying. And perhaps something else, she supposed, as her insides wobbled. “But deep down, I think I realized what I was getting into. I simply didn’t care.” And that was the truth.
She hadn’t. Not in that moment. Nothing had mattered. Nothing except knowing there was a chance Loki would be delivered from whatever hell he had been sent to. That she might stop his suffering. He slid over next to her. Gathered her in, frowned as he felt her shivering, and pulled the covers up around them both.
“Even so, you shouldn’t have done it, Morgane. You have no idea what Odin is capable of.”
She wished this infernal trembling would stop. “Then tell me. Tell me what to expect next.”
“I wish…” He choked on the words. “I wish I could undo your promise. But I can’t.”
“Just say it. I already know it’s bad. I saw you when you came back, remember? If that’s what he’s willing to do to a friend, I have no illusions what he’ll do to me.” She met his eyes and found the trembling had mostly stopped. “Now. Tell me everything.”
“Since Odin’s immortal, he has all the time in the world. Plus, he’s bored. So he’s prone to intricate, drawn out tortures. And since he knows you and I share a connection, he’ll most likely exploit that first. If that fails, he’ll draw you out some other way. You don’t have any family, no loved ones, right?”
“Not a soul.”
Something like pity flared in his eyes before it faded. “Well, at least that will make it more difficult for him.”
“Good,” she ground out. “Difficult is good. I’d like to make this as fucking hard as possible for him.”
“Good,” he agreed, and something inside her loosened. An ally. She had an ally in this now, two against one. Two against two, she amended, remembering the woman.
“Tell me about Hel.”
“Did you figure that out on your own?”
“Sort of, by process of elimination.” Or maybe that cold, dead look in her eyes when she stared at me like I was her next meal. “And don’t tell me it’s complicated because I already know it is. Everything’s complicated. But you’ve got to trust me. Since I made a deal with the devil, I’d better understand who the devil is.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Loki conceded, but his voice remained tight.
“I’ll start with those you’ve already met. Odin is our king, for lack of a better word. Mir is the brains of the operation. I’m Odin’s right hand man, so to speak. I have two living children, Hel, who you have come to know, and Fenrir, who you have yet to meet. We were born immortal gods. And for the last two thousand years, we have been exiled to this planet you call Earth.”
Complicated was beginning to sound more straightforward than whatever Loki was about to delve into.
“Here in the Chicago operation, there are a total of eight of us: Odin, me, Mir, Tyr, Thor, Vali, Freyr, and Fenrir. Tyr, the God of War, sees to our security and our ongoing war against Hel and her Grim. Our daily lives revolve around killing demons, mostly. We all rotate hunting areas, have a city-wide surveillance system set up, courtesy of Mir, and use everything at our disposal to keep those little bastards in check.
“There’s a whole other operation operating out of New York, a mix of halflings, Fae, immortals, and half-breeds. A similar group operating out of Los Angeles. A few scattered groups of immortals spread throughout Europe and the rest of the world. Chicago is our most recent seat of operations. We started in Scandinavia and moved westward over the years, ending up here. For the moment.
“Over three thousand years ago, when we woke in this realm, we all looked like this.” Loki indicated himself, all corded muscle and tanned skin. “Young. To mortal eyes, late-twenties or so. Reborn, according to Mir.” His voice turned hard. “Cursed, according to Odin.”
“Of course, he would think that.” Morgane’s voice was laced with disdain.
Nodding, Loki continued, “We woke on this planet alive and young and still immortal. And trapped. Hel in the Underworld, her demons at her disposal, while the rest of us were on Earth with the mortals. Slowly, over millennia, our war transformed into what it is now. She sends her minions forth to collect human souls every night, and we fight them.”
“How… I don’t understand. How did you get from your world to ours? You said you were exiled?”
“It was because of me. I…I did something that caused all of…” He turned his head and stared hard at the wall. “You have to understand, Morgane, from the moment I came into being, my future was foretold. I think because of that everything I did all my life was, in some way, a rebellion against this predestined fate. Not that it mattered, in the end.”
“What did you do, Loki?”
“Hel, my daughter, convinced me there was only one way to prevent the end of Asgard.
“I had to kill a creature known as the world serpent. Another child of mine, by the way. So I did. But the whole thing turned into a debacle.”
“Long story short, by attempting to undo the future, I ended up fulfilling every prophecy ever written about me. Asgard fell, our world was burned to ash. We gods killed each other, our people perished. Just as the Fates predicted, I brought about the end of our world. But we didn’t truly die. We woke up here. Trapped as prisoners, cursed to fight. Every night, Hel unleashes her demons on your world. Every night, we fight to protect it.
Because this world is all we have left.”
Morgane stayed her reaching hand. She wanted to touch him. Her fingers yearned to stroke those words, all of his regret away. But instead she asked, “So you, all of the immortal gods, and Hel are stuck here?”
“We are. We can walk between some of the worlds, using portals controlled by Odin. Some of us are confined to other realms. Hel has reign over both the Underworld and this realm. Her demons roam freely between the two but only at night, held in check by us and others tasked with protecting your kind.”
“And this cycle goes on and on forever? No end in sight?”
“Lately, there has been a shift. Like I told you, something’s changed.”
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br /> “How bad do you think it is?”
“If you saw Hel standing at Odin’s side, it’s bad. If the two of them have forged some sort of alliance, it’s worse than anyone thought. She has waited a long time to gain her freedom. We may continue to fight, but we’re losing. Every night we get weaker and she gets stronger.”
“She’s your daughter. Surely you can do something. Fix this.”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried? She hates me worse than any other. Part of the reason she used me to wreck Asgard was revenge. Since I’m the one who bound her to the Underworld soon after she was born, she hates my guts.” Father-daughter relationships were complicated, but all of this because his little girl is pissed off? Seriously?
“So she’s locked in some sort of epic battle with you guys, and we humans get caught in the middle? That sucks. Besides, her demons took my mom and sister away.” Morgane watched the sun breach a cloud and scatter light through the streets. “What can we do, if she and Odin are cooking something up between them?”
“We’re doing everything we can just to fight the demons back to the Underworld every night. We can’t do any more than we already are.”
“Does Odin fight?” He shook his head.
“Why the hell not?”
“He’s an oracle, not a warrior. He doesn’t go out on the streets and battle.”
“You mean he won’t demean himself by getting dirty? He’d rather sit on his throne of gold and play king?”
“Let me remind you, he’s hardly playing.”
“Maybe he’s been on Hel’s side all along, ever thought of that? Maybe he’s been manipulating you guys the whole time.” The sound of heavy, booted footsteps passed the door as Loki drew Morgane in against his chest, but the steps passed by, the thumping faded. Morgane realized she saw genuine fear, fading from Loki’s eyes.
The Banished Gods Box Set: Books 1-3 Page 10