The Banished Gods Box Set: Books 1-3

by L. A. McGinnis

  Christ, this was like losing her all over again.

  “I think Mir will need some time to answer that question properly, Ava. But I promise you, he’ll do everything he can to find the answers.”

  Morgane blinked, Loki’s gentle, deep voice pulling her out of replaying what had happened down in the Underworld. Later. There would be time to mourn Mom later. Debate why she’d done it. For now? They had to figure out what was wrong with Ava. Right now, before Ava was dragged back down to the Underworld. Or worse.

  Ava’s hand drifted over her stomach, hovered there. “It feels like I have something…heavy inside me.” Ava’s voice shook slightly. She turned to Mir hopefully. “Can you get it out?”

  “I don’t even know what’s inside of you. So no, I can’t answer that question. Yet.” Mir’s eyes slid to Morgane’s, a touch of sympathy in them.

  “Give him a little bit of time, Ava, he’s good at fixing things. Even mortal things like us.” Morgane shot her sister an encouraging look, then over to Loki, now involved in some deep discussion with Balder. “Do one of you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Balder stepped forward. “I may be able to shed some light on this situation.” He glanced over at Loki for confirmation. “But you’re not going to like it.”

  “Yeah, tell me something I don’t know.” Morgane let her head fall back onto the table. She thought she’d been prepared for whatever outcome she faced today. Go to the Underworld, trick Hel, bring back a soul for Odin and a couple for herself, maybe get a shot at an actual future with Loki.

  Hey, anything was possible, right?

  What had she expected? She and Loki would live out their lives hunting down demons and kicking ass? Epic fucking unicorns and rainbows kind of shit? Instead, she’d watched her mother die. Again. Instead, Ava seemed to be one step away from turning into a wraith and infected with some type of hellish virus from the Underworld. Now she had to sit here and listen to this next horrible thing Balder was about to tell her.

  Still, the truth is the truth, and dressing it up won’t make it any prettier. “Fine. If you know what’s happening, tell us.”

  “You know, I’ve been down there a long time.” Balder’s voice was patient.

  Whenever someone tells you they’re about to drop a big reveal on you, and then segues into bland, vague misdirection, you know you’re in big trouble. Especially when they start out with something as obvious as I’ve been down there a long time. Back to her original point. She really wasn’t ready to hear this.

  “And being down there all that time, you hear things.” Balder’s eyes started to ping pong around the room, skimming over Loki, her, Fenrir, and finally settling on Mir. If Mir was the safe choice, she and Ava truly were in deep shit.

  “What kind of things?” Loki’s voice was all casual-like, but he skirted the table and pressed closer to Morgane, so close she felt his warmth radiate into her. His hand began stroking her arm, calming her, keeping her steady. Readying her for whatever she was about to hear.

  “Gossip, really.”

  “Seriously, there’s gossip in the Underworld?”

  “Gossip. Torture. Screaming. All sorts of things.” Watching Balder’s eyes begin to gleam, Morgane knew terrible things had happened to him down there. Really, really terrible things. “Hel likes to talk while she…works. Brag.” Those bright eyes landed on hers and stayed there. “Lately, she’s been talking about you.”

  “Me?” Confused, Morgane’s brain scrambled around for an explanation. “Why in the name of all that’s holy would she even know about me? The first time she saw me, she acted like…”

  “It was a surprise? Who you were?” Balder let out a hollow-sounding chuckle. “She knew exactly who you were.” His eyes slid over to Ava. “And who your sister is.” His voice grew softer. “As a matter of fact, she’s been following both of you for quite a while.”

  “How is that possible?” Ava whispered. “I’ve been down there for…” She hesitated, confusion on her face. “For a long time, I think.” The shadows beneath her eyes were so dark they looked like bruises.

  “Two years,” Morgane said quietly. “You’ve been gone for two years now, Ava.”

  “Oh, God, it seemed so much longer. Okay, so I’ve been dead for two years. I never heard any…gossip.”

  “I was there for thousands of years.” He shrugged. “You’re trapped somewhere for that long, you hear things.”

  “Let me get this straight.” Mir rubbed his temples hard enough she heard the friction. “You’re telling me the Queen of the Dead knows these two mortals? Talked about them? What does that even mean?”

  Balder flicked his eyes to Loki. “I think it means…”

  He stopped midsentence the second Odin stepped in. Odin’s presence seemed to suck every bit of air out of the room. “You made it back.” His gaze, as he appraised Morgane, was dispassionate. Cold. “In one piece too. I trust things went as planned?”

  Loki’s hand tightened on her arm. A warning. Morgane swallowed down the words bubbling up inside her. The emotions gnawing their way out. Her face, and her voice, smoothed out. “As well as could be expected. Considering.”

  Odin offered Balder a cool nod, which was returned. They clasped hands. For such a brief moment, she thought she might have imagined it. So at odds with the long, emotional embrace he and Loki had shared. Father and son. Yet the rumor was, Loki was the one whose deeds kept Balder locked away all these years. Now she wondered.

  “Who is this?” As Odin’s cold gaze raked her over, Ava pushed herself up onto her elbows, then painfully shifted her thin legs over the edge of the table, and sat up, that familiar, slightly questioning tilt to her head. Her dark hair swung forward, those eyes of hers, narrowing slightly, measuring up Odin in return. An undeniable gleam in the depths of her gaze.

  Morgane had forgotten.

  Forgotten what Ava looked like. Smelled like. Acted like.

  Felt like when you were around her.

  Ava had always been the beautiful one. Striking, was how their mother had always described her. With a sharp, serrated edge, Morgane had always added silently. Ava’s riveting eyes—so deep blue they didn’t even look like a real color—were framed by sweeping, arched brows and long lashes atop high, chiseled cheekbones. She might be thin, but her face was still a study in perfection, a weapon she’d honed and used to her advantage since childhood. It would be wise to be wary of Ava. She burned too bright. She was too…violent in the way she lived. As if life was an event to be engaged, not enjoyed.

  Ava had scared Morgane before Chicago. Now, though?

  Now her sister seemed the perfect predator for this world. Capable, in so many ways, of taking what it had to offer. Snapping its neck and handing it right back.

  Her voice a dark purr, Ava murmured, “I’m Avalon Burke. And you are?” So careful, her sister. As if she knew exactly what sort of being was standing in front of her. Yet, curiosity sparked in those exceptional eyes of hers. Curiosity and something infinitely darker.

  “Pissed off.” Odin whirled back to Morgane, baring his teeth. “You brought another soul back. You fucking double-crossed me.” In truth, Morgane had been waiting for this. Bracing for it. But now, after the scrambling, messy escape, after watching her mother sacrifice herself, with some horrible vileness roiling in her sister, she discovered she simply didn’t have the strength for it.

  20

  “Double-crossed is a rather strong word,” Morgane began, choosing her next words carefully, walking the wide, wavering line between lies and the truth.

  “I prefer…keeping my part of the bargain and getting a little extra in return.” Her eyes were cautious as she surveyed him. “I brought you back what you asked for. So what if I worked the situation to my advantage? Deal with it.” Her voice lost a bit of its bluster as she added quietly, “I never would have gotten out of there without their help and you know it.”

  “Because you decided to cheat me and bring back more than what
you were supposed to. Balder would have gotten you out. Just like we planned.” Morgane was well aware of Loki’s eyes drilling into her with that little revelation.

  “I brought…” Morgane pinched the bridge of her nose. “You know what? Never mind. I don’t give a shit. You got what you wanted. Be happy with that.” She grew thoughtful. “One would think you’d be glad to get your son out of that hellhole, to know he is not suffering anymore. You should be happy he’s finally free. But you’re just pissed I didn’t play by your rules, aren’t you?”

  “Nobody double-crosses me, especially not a mortal.” There was cold, sharp determination on Odin’s face that promised there would be a price to be paid for what she’d done. Odin’s eyes skimmed the room, over Loki, Mir, settling on Balder. “But you did what I asked. And I suppose that’s something.”

  “Clearly I did. Since Balder’s back here on Earth with us.” And the cost of success, the cost of all of them sitting here? She kind of doubted Odin would care it was her mother’s life.

  She almost said more, even with everyone in the room watching them, but the words got all jammed up in her throat, even before Loki stepped between them. “That’s enough. Get out.”

  She swore she saw a shimmer of blue fire coat his hands. Or her eyes were playing tricks on her.

  “You don’t give me orders, traitor.”

  “No.” Mir stepped up beside Loki. “But I do, in my infirmary. Go. Give me time to sort through shit with Balder. I want to make sure these two mortals get some sleep. Food. They’re about to pass out from exhaustion. The sister’s malnourished and weak. You can pick this up again tomorrow if you so choose.”

  Without another word, Odin spun on his heel and was gone.

  Ava stared at him as he left then to the rest of them said, “I’ve never met anyone before whose name is Pissed Off.”

  It took Morgane a minute to catch up. Mir, too, because his rough chuckle broke out about the same time hers did, when she finally grasped what Ava said.

  “Odin. His name’s Odin. And I think your sister just handed him his ass. But enough about him. You two get in bed and stay there,” Mir grumbled. “For at least twelve hours. And food, I wasn’t bullshitting about that, either, you should both eat before you drop over.”

  “No,” Morgane corrected him. “No sleep for me, not until I have a handle on what happened. I need Balder to finish explaining.” She looked over to Ava, who bowed her head, resigned to hearing the rest. Morgane gripped her hand again and gave it a hard squeeze.

  At Morgane’s encouraging nod, Balder continued as if he’d never stopped. “A few years ago, something in the Underworld shifted. It was as if…a doorway opened up to somewhere even darker. And Hel began talking nonstop about freedom.”

  “My daughter is bound to the Underworld for eternity,” Loki pointed out, his hand smoothing over Morgane’s arm. “There is no escape for her, just as there is no escape for us from this realm. We are bound to our destinies.”

  “She began talking about freedom,” Balder insisted. “And not just her occasional forays into the mortal world. I’m talking total run of the Earth shit. Demons and all. Talked of a glorious future, of having no walls between worlds.” Balder licked his lips, adding cautiously, “Even talked of building a new world.”

  “And in all of her talk of freedom and leaving the Underworld for Earth,” Balder hesitated before adding, “your names came up.”

  “Our names?” Morgane shook her head in doubt. “There’s no way, how would she even know about us? We’re nobodies.”

  “Nevertheless, you were mentioned.” His eyes shifted over to Ava. “And as you know, she turned special attention to you. Especially at the end.” Ava’s face suddenly went blank, as if every emotion had just been wiped away.

  Balder gripped the edge of the counter, his face grave, pausing before he answered. “She mentioned you, Morgane. By name, while talking about freedom. About how she was going to shop. Gods, on and on with the shopping until I thought my ears were going to bleed. Not that they could, but still.”

  “Anything else?” Loki prompted. “What else?”

  “Too much to remember right now. Plans and schemes larger than you can imagine. She’s breeding things bigger and badder than the Grim, too, down in the catacombs beneath the dungeons. Mir, you and I’d better get together so I can explain how deep of shit you…we are in right now. Sometimes I think she’s insane, other times, she seems like she’s the sanest person in the room.”

  Balder shook his head. “She’s up to some scary shit, my friend, some real scary shit.”

  “May I please be somewhere I can see the sky?”

  It had been Ava’s only request.

  “This room’s small but overlooks the lake and a good part of the museum campus, right over there.” Morgane gestured to the huge window. “You can watch the sun come up every morning. And when it sets at night, the shadows of the buildings cut across the water. It’s beautiful.”

  She set down the towels, the plate of food she had carried up here, and stalled out. “What else Ava? What else can I do?”

  “Nothing.” Ava’s voice caught as she slid dark, empty eyes over to the window. “Everything.”

  Morgane’s throat tightened.

  “Mom never got out. But I did, you made sure of it. But…Mom. She’s still down there.” Her voice thinned down to the barest whisper. “That bitch will make her pay, you know, for trying to escape. For us managing to escape. The evil things Hel does, enjoys doing…” Ava’s eyes turned cold and unreadable. As if picturing exactly what Hel was doing.

  The ground felt as though it were being ripped out from beneath her. “We’ll get Mom out of there, Ava.” Morgane promised fiercely. “I did it once. I can do it again.”

  “You did. I don’t know how but you did. It could have gotten you killed, yet you went down there, faced Hel, and beat her. And got us all out. How, Morgane? You were just a kid when I saw you last. How is any of this possible?” Ava’s voice broke on the final word.

  “A lot changed after you and Mom were killed. I changed. I had to. But right now isn’t the time to talk about it. Tomorrow,” Morgane said firmly. “Tomorrow we’ll talk about everything. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. Right now you should sleep. And watch the sunrise in the morning. It should be spectacular.”

  “I haven’t seen a sunrise in two years.”

  “I know.” Morgane smiled a little, pushing her sister toward the bed. She covered her up, tucking the blankets around her, as their mother would have, if she’d made it out alive. “But tomorrow? You will.”

  That thought alone almost wiped away the image of her mother’s slight figure swaying underneath the weight of all those Grim as they swept her aside.

  21

  An hour later, Balder’s words were an endless blur.

  “So you’re convinced Hel has been watching me all this time?” Morgane chewed her lip. “What about these past two years? I’ve been killing her little pets,” she pointed out, thinking about how she’d feel if someone were doing the same to her. “A lot of them. She seemed sort of pissed about that.”

  “Could be why she sent all those demons after you the other night. Maybe she was tired of losing them?”

  “How many times has Hel come calling, Morgane?” Loki pushed gently. “How many times has death come knocking at your door?”

  Morgane tallied them up on her fingers. Too many, it seemed, these past few years. “Well, Dad died in a freak car accident, which was the start of everything, less than three years ago. Ava had already quit school by then, but I was a freshman at the University of Chicago. That’s why we came back here, for the damn trip, you know. Because we liked the city and wanted to show it off to Mom. Then the demons took Mom and Ava. I died, the doctors told me, on my way to the hospital.” Loki reached out and grasped her hand, intertwined his fingers with hers, as the pieces of her past began to fall into place. “Three times, at least, that night alone.”
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br />   She felt a tremor, “But they brought me back.” She whispered, her eyes darting between Loki and Balder. “The EMS guys saved me that night. So I didn’t actually die. Hel would have missed her chance that night.”

  “If Hel started this all those years ago…” Morgane felt her insides roiling but mustered up the next horrible question as it came to mind. “You think Hel killed my dad, then somehow influenced us to come back to the city to finish me off? She is the Goddess of Death, right?”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Morgane,” Loki cautioned, though he made no other arguments against her theory, only stared, his gaze cutting into her sharply.

  “Yet somehow, you found your way here.” Balder shared an intense look with Loki. “Or rather, Loki found you. Any way you look at it, you’re right in the middle of this. Whether by luck or chance, it seems you’re involved and have been for quite some time.”

  Morgane’s voice grew heavy, the words pushed out as if they were made of lead. “I don’t want to be a pawn in someone’s sick game.” She squeezed Loki’s hand in return. “Odin’s already used me. I won’t allow Hel to use me. I don’t know why or how or when this started.” She met their eyes steadily. “But it stops now. Tonight.”

  She hadn’t done this in so very long she wasn’t quite sure how to, or even if she should trust them enough to. But like Balder pointed out, her path had led her here. Perhaps it always had. She’d lost her mother and regained her sister. Balder was alive because of her. Odin had all but promised retribution. Sides were forming, lines were being drawn.

  And in war, allies were hard to come by.

  She took a breath, positive the words were going to come out all wrong.

  “Can you help me?”

  Hours later, the bath was still steaming. If the fog would just swallow her up, maybe she could disappear inside it and forget everything that had happened in the last few days. Morgane piled her hair on top of her head, twisted it tight, stabbing it through with two pins before sinking lower into the water, feeling the heat seep into her bones. Letting the warmth smooth out the aches, the scrapes, the sore muscles, when all the while her mind churned out impossible theories.