The dark thing inside her was fighting now, so close to freedom she clamped down upon it, held it under her boot, feeling it kick back, felt it winning. She hadn’t gotten up this morning looking for a fight, but one had just strolled in here and found her.
And still, she couldn’t quite wipe the lazy arrogance off his face.
“So…no complaint form, I take it?”
“Your sister is dead. I killed her.”
The words, those horrible, hateful words, wound their way through the air with terrible slowness. She knew he had been saving them, waiting to spring his trap while she teased and taunted, holding them for the right moment, just so he could watch her, savor the way they tore straight through her.
“How?” Was all she managed before the words were choked off.
“A knife through the heart. It was quick.”
He might as well have plunged it through her chest. Ava became vaguely aware there were others in the room with them now, aware she had surged to her feet, but all she saw was that face, his gloating, triumphant face in front of her.
She shoved down the sob rising in her throat. Clamped down on the panic. Steady Burke, steady. You can’t know for sure if he’s telling the truth. You can’t know what games he might be playing.
The darkness howled for release now, an icy, clawing creature tearing a path up through her. She pushed that back down as well. Not until she knew for sure. Not until she saw Morgane’s body would she know the truth. “I have to speak to Loki. Right now.”
“Thought you might.” He smiled savagely. His silvery eyes flicked over her shoulder, behind her, to someone standing there. “One of you assholes go find him. Tell him Morgane’s sister needs to hear it from him and make it fast. I want her out of here and back in the mortal world. Sooner the better.”
And then they were alone.
Ava felt the world slipping out from beneath her as she tracked him, watching him circle her, closing in.
Something else, there was something else he was about to tell her. Something that was going to hurt, even worse than death.
“She thought to save you from eternal hell, you know. Made quite the gamble, double-crossing me to do just that. Too bad you’re up here.” He leaned in closer, purring the truth into her ear. “And she’s trapped down there. Forever.”
“No, no, no. Not possible. She was alive. She must be alive.”
“Oh no, Ava, I can assure you, she is not. She is very much dead and trapped in the Underworld with Hel. Where she’ll stay, for all eternity.” He stared down at her, slicing through her with his icy gaze, while every piece of her recoiled.
“It’s exactly like you said, boo fucking hoo.”
Ava.
He had forgotten about Ava. They all had.
As Loki raced down the hallway toward the commissary, he prayed Odin wasn’t talking to her, or worse, toying with her. From what Vali quickly explained after he pounded on the door, Odin was walking a dangerous edge, and he’d better get his ass down there. So here he was, taking the steps three at a time before skidding into the kitchen.
Blinking, he wasn’t exactly sure what in the holy hell he was seeing.
The room was filled with a mixture of dappled sunlight and blotchy patches of darkness, the air shifting between light and shadow. This was before he realized that darkness itself was emanating from Ava. Some kind of sinister, primordial ooze, tendrils of which were wrapped around Odin, and the immortal, the most powerful god of them all, had his head thrown back, his mouth open wide. Screaming in pain so intense, he couldn’t make a sound.
“Ava?” The darkness swirled about her as she turned to him, a protective, embrace of shadows wrapping around her, her eyes endless pits, her lips a thin, cruel line. Not a single flicker of recognition on her pale face. The cords in Odin’s neck stood out, his back arching until Loki thought he might break in two.
Loki met that dark, endless gaze unwaveringly. “Ava. Let him go. This won’t help your sister. But I know how you can.”
Her head tilted, a strange, foreign gesture, those depthless eyes glimmering with something not of this earth. “Ava, honey, if you kill him, it will trap Morgane down there forever. You will be the one who dooms her. Do you want to be that person?”
She reached out, stretching toward him, reaching, the blackness leaking from her, inky pools of it falling around her feet.
“Come back, Ava, get control of it again.” He paused as the dark tendrils coalesced, ribbons wrapping tighter around Odin. “You can do it. Come on, take control back.” Finally, he screamed, “Fucking let him down, damn it.”
As if a wind blew through the room, the shadows disappeared, the shifting light became sun, and Odin dropped to the floor, heaving on the linoleum. At the sounds of boots pounding down the hallway toward them, Loki raised his arms, his eyes searching Ava’s blue, terrified ones as she backed slowly away from Odin.
Instantly, blue flame crept from Loki’s hands, running in rivulets across the floor, and covered Odin, flashing heat in blue and gold over him while he groaned and writhed. In a blink, they were gone, leaving charred clothing and rising blisters in their wake. The steps stilled out in the hall. “Get out of here,” he hissed to Ava. “Right now, just go. Don’t stop, don’t talk to anyone. Lock yourself in your room and wait for me. And don’t let whatever the fuck is inside of you out again.”
She skirted the body on the floor and left, the scent of smoke and burnt flesh filling the room. Odin stirred, limbs flopping, moaning. Loki gave him a second, then two, waiting for Odin to open his eyes.
They finally fluttered open, full of impotent rage, his voice a hoarse whisper, “You are so fucking dead. I am going to…”
“Save it.” Loki crouched down, well aware of the gathering crowd behind them. Careful to enunciate every single word. “We’ve gone around for thousands of years, you and me, but this is the end. Today was only a taste, you hear me? I would have killed you had Ava not been here to stop me. Count yourself lucky she was. But I’m coming for you, and you’ll never know when. Might be in your sleep or at breakfast. But trust me, I’ll take you out.”
Rising, he brushed a bit of ash off his pant leg and met every bit of condemnation in Mir’s incredulous face with a grim smile. “You should clean this mess up. It smells like burnt popcorn in here.”
33
Loki found Ava exactly where he told her to be.
Pale and shaking, but alive.
A faint glimmer of hope that maybe something might be salvaged out of this mess after all.
Thank the gods.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“I did.” He breathed. “If Odin thought it had been you, Ava, if he so much as suspected…” He couldn’t finish. She would be the one lying on the shitty linoleum floor, dead. Both sisters, dead. He allowed himself what he hoped was an easy, careless shrug. “Besides, he hates my guts already. He can add today to the growing list.”
“Damn it, Loki.” Ava prowled closer and he noted while the blackness wasn’t currently leaking out of her, it was very much writhing inside of her. Searching for a way out. “Now we’re both in trouble, when all I was doing was waiting to talk to you.”
“I know.” With everyone occupied with Odin, this would be their best chance for conversation. Once Odin was up and healed, which might take minutes, or hours at most, the opportunity might never arise again. Loki blew out a breath. At least, he told himself, they wouldn’t be coming after Ava. At least he’d prevented that.
“Tell me. Tell me why I haven’t seen my sister in two days? Why isn’t she with you right now?” She asked in a shaky voice, panic vibrating a hairsbreadth beneath the surface. “Tell me anything…except what Odin told me is true. Say he’s lying. I want you to tell me that bastard didn’t kill Morgane.”
A million hopes were wrapped up in her next word. “Please.”
Loki stilled. For someone who had lived a life based on deception and lies, the truth seemed far t
oo cruel. “I’m sorry, Ava. I am so sorry. What he said…”
“No.” She was shattering, shattering and there was nothing, nothing to be done for it.
“Ava.” Reaching out, he grasped her hands, despite the tendrils of black swirling, despite those darkening, inhuman eyes. “I know a way to save her.” Her eyes flashed back to blue. “There might be a chance we can get her back.”
She waited, her silence a question in itself.
“Odin killed her”—his breath caught on the words—“to trap Hel in the Underworld, as part of some deal Hel offered him. Eternal peace for this world. She stays out and keeps her little demons confined to her realm. In return for Morgane. Your sister’s soul was her asking price.”
“No, no. None of that’s possible.” Ava’s dark hair swirled around her as she turned, paced, before spinning to face him. “Where’s her body, then? If she’s down in the Underworld, then she’s dead, right? If she’s dead, where’s her body?”
“In my room.”
Hoarsely, she forced the words out. “You’re lying.”
“Gods, I wish I was. But I’m not. Do you wish to see her?”
So many things in those dark blue eyes. Fear. Disbelief. Horror sparked, and her face paled until Loki thought he would have to catch her when she fell. But she straightened her shoulders, her gaze unwavering before demanding, “Fine. Take me to her, then.”
Upstairs, Ava hesitated on the doorjamb for a second before sweeping into the room, drawn to the white-sheeted body on the bed. Loki watched, heart in his throat, as she stroked her sister’s smooth, dead cheek. So tenderly, it nearly broke his heart.
“She could be alive. She looks alive.”
Loki met her questioning look. “Mir’s magic. He’s keeping her like this. For when we get her soul out of the Underworld. So she’ll have a body to return to.” His heart was doing strange, odd things, stuttering and hurting and pounding hard, all at the same time. He had never felt so empty and full at once in his life.
Quickly, he gave her an abbreviated rundown of the Dagda, the portal, the doorway to the Underworld. The chance they had at bringing her back. “We don’t have a lot of time, but we can do this, Ava. I know we can, all I need is to find her down there.”
She remained silent, sending one long, last look at Morgane. He reached out a hand to her and she took it, her eyes unyielding. Together, they made for the door
And for once, the path laid out in front of him didn’t seem like a weight to be born. It felt like a chance that was offered.
34
She was running out of time.
The stones beneath her shuddered, millions of demons scrambling for escape, the walls pressing in under the immense amount of trapped souls. Morgane listened to none of it. What she could hear was the faint drip, drip, drip of her blood hitting the floor, ten feet below her body, as she hung, suspended in the chamber.
With some effort, she squeezed air into her body. Then some more. If she died, as she had several times already, the goddess would just revive her and start all over again. She might as well save them both the effort.
Had she known the price she would pay for killing the demons and her crack about shopping and…something else she could no longer remember, she would have kept her mouth shut.
Then again maybe not, it was hard to tell, everything was so damn fuzzy.
The dripping sound lessened. Her breaths came slower and slower. Her heartbeats grew fainter. She would hang on until the end. She would not break. And even through the pain, a part of her rejoiced.
Somewhere, above her, Loki was alive. Ava too. Why Hel was using her as a pawn was still a mystery, but what she did know was somewhere in the world, people she loved would live out their lives, which was enough.
Beneath her, she felt an incessant, unyielding tug and her entire body jerked, sending the chains jangling. As if she were connected to an anchor bigger and heavier than herself. Something far, far below her, buried deeply. Something poised to swallow her up.
She wanted to be swallowed up. Wanted to disappear. The pain was a sharp, glinting thing upon which she rode, for hours now. It ebbed and flowed but was ever present, the quivering edge of a knife, one which Hel kept her delicately balanced upon, and she looked for any escape. Even death. Even though she knew the reprieve would only be fleeting.
“Well, there you are, right where I left you. On the brink again. I have a special treat for you. A little send off before I send you off.” Hel’s taunting had her raising her head, just far enough that she glimpsed the shiny tips of her shoes. And the set of dirty, bare feet beside her. Morgane strained, her head coming up until her eyes took in Gwen Burke, her mother, standing right next to Hel.
“See? I told you she’d be glad to see you.” Her mom’s eyes swamped with tears, her mouth silently mouthing, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Over and over again.
“I don’t have long, so I wanted to see if we could move this process along. Simple torture doesn’t seem to be cutting it, pardon the pun, so I thought something a bit more…creative might be called for.” With a hand, the goddess shoved Gwen down to the floor as Morgane watched, horrified, from where she was suspended.
“I know what you’re feeling, believe it or not. I had a daughter once. A very, very long time ago. Met a human I could actually stand, for a time. He may have been a brute, but oh, we made the most beautiful baby together. Losing her…” Hel’s voice trailed off into a whisper.
“Losing that child was the worst agony I’d ever experienced. I’ve oft wondered if that pain goes both ways?” She cocked her head up at Morgane, the movement completely inhuman.
“Now mortal souls are eternal, reincarnated over and over again. There are a finite number of them, each one very special.” Hel’s teeth sparkled. “Unique, you might say.” Hel pressed her foot to the middle of Morgane’s mother’s back, flattened her to the floor. The chains began to clank as Morgane fought, flailing in the air, struggling to get free. To breathe.
How had it come to this? Her mother down there, Morgane helpless to get to her, helpless…
The woman who had raised her, held her hand from the time she was a child, held flat against that floor, Hel’s foot against her back as Morgane struggled, bucked against the iron bands holding her, even as they tore into her, even as blood ran down her arms. Gwen raised her eyes to Morgane, and smiled defiantly. A final goodbye, as well as a final order. A mother telling her daughter to fight.
One more time.
A reddish glow covered Hel’s fingers, spread to her hand. It was reflected in the blackness of her eyes as she looked up at Morgane. “This is hellfire. It consumes everything it touches, and it is eternally permanent. I use it sparingly because it comes with a rather high cost. But for you, Morgane darling, I’ll make an exception.”
With a touch, Gwen Burke burst into flames, her screaming mingled with Morgane’s, and Hel stepped back and watched as both of them died.
One to be reborn.
One to never exist again.
35
Loki practically dragged Ava past the infirmary door, feeling Odin on the other side. Feeling the banked rage, the barely contained fury. The good news was, he was in there alone. The bad news?
Soon he would be healed and when he was, both of them had best be gone.
“Where are you taking me?” She seethed, even as her feet hurried alongside his, matching him step for step.
“We’re going to talk to Mir. I want to run something by him, another piece to this godforsaken puzzle before we get the hell out of here. Then we find somewhere to lie low until nightfall. Somewhere you’ll be safe while I go back down to the Underworld and bring your sister home.”
“Why Mir?”
“Because he knows everything. And we could use the help.”
When they reached Mir’s office, he set her against the wall. “Wait here. Don’t move, don’t leave. I’ll be right back.”
Shutting the door tightly be
hind him, he waited for Mir to turn around in his chair. When he finally did, his face unreadable, Loki said in a rush, “I need you to listen to me for a minute. Just listen, not ask any questions, just listen.”
“Fen’s back. There’s some curse, or legend involving Morgane. The end of all worlds, the Dagda told Fenrir. Something they call the Amanna Deiridh. This legend of theirs tells of a girl who will rise from the dead, and her return precedes the rise of a dark god, one who’s going to destroy everything in his path. Supposedly she’s the key that unlocks some door between realms and unleashes this dark god. If that door opens, there’s no closing it.” He hoped Ava wasn’t out there, listening to him rehash this whole thing, which was why he was trying to keep it short and sweet.
“Any of this sound vaguely familiar?”
Mir spun back around in his chair, picked up a piece of paper off his desk, and held it out between two fingers. In big, bold letters, surrounded by a bunch of runic scrawls, were the words: AMANNA DEIRIDH.
“That answer your question?”
Loki stared hard at the paper as if he could make it disappear, even as the words ripped through him.
“And tell Ava to get her ass in here. Odin finds her out there, she’s as good as dead.”
“Ava, come on in.” She came, sticking close to the wall, her back to the door, eyes on Mir the whole time. “It’s okay, this is going to be okay,” Loki said, his voice even.
Mir snorted. “You keep telling yourself that. Maybe it will actually come true.”
Don’t, Loki thought. Don’t push her, not right now, not in this closed, tiny space. You have no idea what she’s capable of. Then again, neither do I.
“How did you figure it out?” Ava asked softly, eyes straying to the paper on the desk, then to the expressions on their faces.
The Banished Gods Box Set: Books 1-3 Page 19