The Banished Gods Box Set: Books 1-3

by L. A. McGinnis

  Because it was not Sydney who smiled.

  Mir was trying hard to block out Fen’s voice.

  “If the Orobus’s gotten his claws into Syd, it’s hard to tell what he’s done to her, Mir. Could be anything. That monster has a way of changing everything it touches. Even Celine’s different than she was before.” Fen was healing, but far too slowly as Mir watched the seconds, the minutes, tick away one after the other in an agonizingly slow dance of time he did not have.

  While Loki, leaning against the wall, simply nodded in agreement.

  Mir set his jaw against all of it. The delays and the fact that Fen was wrong. “Not Sydney. You watch, she’ll be the same. She’s not going to fucking change a bit.” His eyes bounced between the two of them and the clock overhead. “Not a fucking bit.” He reaffirmed. Not his girl. They’d see. Once he found her.

  “What’s killing me right now is waiting for you to heal enough to take me through. Once we’re in the Otherworld, we’ll find that doorway to Vanaheim.”

  He dragged a hand over his face, studiously ignoring the fact the wolf was still exhausted and barely standing. “And if you can’t get me there, I will go have a little talk with the Morrigan.” Mir’s voice slowly turned softer, the words melting into veiled menace. “At this point, I don’t give a shit how I get her back.”

  His self-control was spiraling away with every passing second, and Fen’s words growing ever louder in his mind. It has a way of changing everything it touches… Mir thought of that black swirling darkness that had followed his woman through that hole, and his panic ratcheted up even higher. Sydney had been alone with that fucking monster for hours, and he’d spent the whole time trying to figure out how to reach her. With no luck.

  Mir closed his eyes, praying for strength. “I have got to get to her, Fen, I’ve fucking…” The blare of static from the radio stopped him right there. “…she’s…here…don’t know if I can…” The staticky, garbled message cut off, leaving the three of them staring at each other.

  “Was that Tyr?” Loki asked, eyes widening. “Because it sure as fuck sounded like him.” His gaze swung around to Mir as he straightened, shaking off the fatigue. “Why is he calling in? I thought everyone was back?”

  “I…we left him at the site, Just in case…” The panic blooming in Mir now had a whole new set of causes. “Shit.”

  The radio clicked back on, and for a count of five slower-than-fuck seconds, nothing came through the speaker. Until finally, something did.

  “Hey, Mir.” The voice issuing from the radio speaker was Sydney’s, no doubt about it. But where Syd’s voice hummed with life, this voice echoed with something else entirely. Something that made Mir’s stomach hollow out. His reaching hand paused midair at her next words. “If you care to see your friend Tyr again, you’d best come down here for a face to face.”

  With that, the connection clicked off, leaving them staring at each other like a bunch of wankers. How the hell could he have failed her so epically? How could things have spiraled so far out of control?

  “I never should have left her alone,” Mir said, his ass frozen to the counter with every passing thought tangling up his mind. “I should have locked her ass up, just like I wanted to in the first fucking place.”

  “And the Orobus would have found a way to take her just the same,” Odin spoke from the doorway, “so don’t beat yourself up about it.”

  His silver gaze drifted across them, something like sadness in it. “Thing is, we need to go. Right now.” When Loki and Fen made for the door, Odin casually blocked their way. “Nope. Just us. She’ll panic if she sees anyone other than Mir. Who is the only one she’s going to see. I’m going along to keep things…calm.” Again, that strange, regretful expression flickered across his usually cold face. “Mir, get your ass in gear.”

  Mir was numb. For all his macho posturing to keep her safe, Sydney had been taken over by that thing. For all his confidence, the monster had won. And he’d utterly failed her in so many ways, for weeks now, practically since the day he’d met her. He hadn’t done a single thing right. He’d lied, he’d evaded, he’d manipulated the truth in ways meant to keep her safe, only to have her fall right into the hands of the very monster he’d worked to keep her away from.

  “This is not your fault,” Odin reiterated. “But if you keep dithering, whatever happens to Tyr will be. And the girl won’t be able to live with herself if she hurts him.”

  That did get his ass moving. “You strong enough to ghost down there? Because if you aren’t, the car ride will take longer than we have.”

  “I’m good.” The clipped words sounded foreign, especially when his thoughts were somewhere else entirely. “Let’s go.”

  The God of War had fought a thousand battles, and Sydney would never, ever hurt a fly, and yet… There was fear in Odin’s eyes. Real, tangible fear that Tyr was in danger, and that they might already be too late.

  Reforming on the edge of the basin, it took Mir a moment to get his bearings. The flat expanse of the museum campus was dusted with snow, littered with huge chunks of rubble and debris, while below him the circle of stones waited like ancient sentinels. And in their midst stood Sydney with Tyr at her feet.

  “Syd?” Mir called, his voice a faint echo against the vastness of the ruined landscape around them. “I’m here. I came just like you asked. Now let him go.” Because there was no doubt she held Tyr. Sweat ran down the god’s face in long, shiny rivers, the strain showing in his face, the whites around his eyes. But all of Mir’s attention was focused on Sydney’s eyes turned up to his, those lovely eyes that had just hours before shimmered with excitement and life, had the darkened, empty gaze of someone who’d been hollowed out. Sucked dry by the very same monster preparing to devour this world. The universe.

  But she was still alive. Alive and here for a reason. Mir’s mind whirled with countless possibilities and then, like a veil was pulled from his eyes, he saw. Saw why she was here, why that thing had sent her back to him, glimpsed the purpose she’d been tasked with. Revenge was a dish best served cold, and when it was served by someone you’d loved… Well, he even understood, to a point, the twisted poetic justice.

  Somewhere deep inside him, the shaking began. Anger, bone deep anger. At the Orobus, at this fucked up situation. At everything stacked against the two of them. The impossible odds that just kept getting more and more hopeless.

  “Let Tyr go, Sydney. I’m here now. That’s what he wants, right?”

  She stilled as if he’d struck a nerve, and in his heart, he knew he had to be right.

  “So let him go,” he urged her gently, cajoling her, soothing her as best he knew how. “And take me, that’s what he sent you back here to do, so do what he wants.”

  She’d already seen too much.

  Too much horror, too much pain, too much of all the bad that the world can give. Add to that, five hours alone in another realm with the Orobus, and it was a testament to her strength she was still standing. Pride surged through him, erasing even the anger. For the moment, at least.

  Mir took a series of steps downward, the gravel spilling beneath his feet, sounding like a waterfall, magnified by the stones and the basin. “Look at me,” he begged her. “I’m right here, right now.” Another few steps and he stepped in between the stones, not daring a glance at Tyr to check if he still breathed, his gaze fixated on Sydney’s beautiful, empty face.

  “Take me,” he whispered, opening up his arms, “and let him go.”

  With a clumsy, lurching movement, she swayed a step then another toward Mir, putting some distance between herself and Tyr, who heaved something liquid onto the ground. The retching, gasping sound told Mir his friend was, at least, still alive.

  “Let me help you, Syd. Let me in and I can get that bastard out of your head.” Reaching out, he probed gently, tenderly against the outside edges of her consciousness. And hit a wall. Not just a wall, an iron clad, reinforced wall that was completely impenetrable. He�
�d never encountered anything like it, and try as he might, he couldn’t find a fissure, a crack, a crevice, a way in.

  Not anywhere.

  The harder he hammered against it, the more resilient it seemed to become. And somewhere behind that unassailable wall, he imagined he heard…laughing.

  Meeting her eyes again, he murmured, “Hang on baby, hang on, I’ll get him out, I swear to the gods, I will…”

  As if it were torn from her, a whispered scream issued from her white lips, “Get away, get away and take Tyr with you, before I hurt either of you. Please…please…please….”

  Mir stayed right where he was, two feet away, panting, watching those pale green eyes of hers flash black, then green, then black again as she fought, fought the bastard god who sought to control her.

  And then somehow, surrounded by the protective shimmer of Odin’s magic, he stood at the top of the basin, Tyr retching beside him, Odin at their back. Sydney, seemingly befuddled by their sudden disappearance, stared around in confusion.

  “We stay any longer and she dies.” Odin’s bald statement gave him no choice in the matter. “She’s fighting for her life right now, Mir. Take us all out of the equation, and she doesn’t have to. Think it through.”

  A nod, and then they were molecules in the air. They reformed back in the Throne Room, Tyr still heaving up his lungs onto the marble floor, Mir locked in a prison of desperation and fear and regret. I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. Even if I couldn’t save her, I should have at least said goodbye.

  His heart bottomed out. Not goodbye. Not yet. I won’t let this be the end of things, not when she still walks this planet, not when she’s still there, somewhere. Whoever she was becoming, whoever she was at the end of this, she would still be his. Whatever fate had in store for the two of them, they were bound together now, for good. Or for bad.

  A dawning realization grew at that, a glimpse of a future both terrible and dark.

  Odin clasped his arm, a firm, steady grip that did not let go. “Don’t give up on her, Mir. She’s not done, not by a long shot. She’s still got something inside of her to fight him with, and so long as she keeps fighting, we don’t give up either.”

  A dry, choking laugh rose up inside of Mir. “Look at you go with the pep talk. And here I thought we kept you around for your good looks.” Not that he was wrong, and not that Mir was going to actually give up. It was just… The hits kept on coming, and with no end in sight, the probabilities kept getting lower and lower. At some point, the law of averages would prove out.

  And the numbers just weren’t in their favor.

  Chapter 29

  Mir and Odin left Tyr heaving his guts up on the floor.

  True enough, he waved them off, but Mir thought it was truly an assholeish thing to do, and maybe they should have helped him up or something. Or at least gotten him a bucket.

  Out of habit, he was following Odin up the curving stairs that led to the top floor, formerly abandoned and only used for storage, and now holding a single occupant. Mostly forgotten and all but useless in the grand scheme of things.

  Morgane’s big sister Ava.

  Survivor of the Underworld.

  Introvert extraordinaire.

  Human depository of a touch of the Orobus’s power, if the stories were true.

  “Oh, they’re true,” Odin assured him drily, taking the steps two at a time.

  If Mir wasn’t mistaken, nervousness was pouring off the king like crazy, which made no sense whatsoever. This was Ava. She barely ever made an appearance, and when she did, it was in the middle of the night to load up on snacks. She skittered around like a scared little rabbit and never said a word to anyone.

  “If you think that, you haven’t been paying attention, Mir. Not for a few months.” Odin slowed down. “Not that I blame you, you’ve had your hands full.”

  If you called the collapse of the city having your hands full. “What in the hell are you talking about? And we need to be figuring out a way to help Syd, by getting that asshole out of her head. Maybe we should be talking Celine, at least she can…”

  “Celine’s next on my list. Ava, however, is first.”

  Mir realized they’d reached the top of the steps, and he was crammed on a tiny landing next to the king, who was edging a tray of half eaten food out of the way with his boot.

  “My advice?” Odin offered casually, “Is to stay behind me. No telling what sort of mood she’s in today.”

  Raising his fist, Odin made as if to bang the door down but changed his mind at the last moment and lightly rapped his knuckles against the wood, twice. Then Odin, king of the immortal gods, stood back and, if Mir was not mistaken, braced himself.

  The door swung open, no real indication of anyone behind it, and Odin stepped through the opening and disappeared completely, as if he’d been swallowed up by a shadow so dense it absorbed every bit of light entering the room. Dread bloomed high and bright in Mir, the kind that premeditates something happening that has no earthly explanation.

  Which had been happening a lot, come to think about it.

  “Mir, get in here.” When Odin’s voice issued out of the darkness, holding no sense of special urgency, pain, or fear, Mir took a deep breath and stepped through. It was like stepping into a night so thick it felt like molasses. The darkness pulled at him, trailing fingers of cold over him, tangible sensations of touch as if the darkness itself was prodding at him, testing him…

  “Ava.” Odin’s voice was rough. “Ava, it’s us, Odin and Mir. We’ve come to you for help, we need your help. Things are bad, out of control really, and we need you.”

  Mir wasn’t sure which was the bigger shocker. That note of unspoken desire underlying Odin’s voice or the fact that he was actually asking for help.

  But out of the sentient darkness issued a silky, sexy voice that made every instinct in him want to either freeze in place or run like hell. “Odin, such a pleasure to see you again.”

  Mir heard a grunt, and a whoosh of breath, followed by something that sounded painful. The darkness continued to constrict around him, tighten, as if the universe was pressing in on him, compressing him down into the size of an atom.

  “Ava.” Mir managed to gasp out. “We have to save Sydney before the Orobus consumes her.”

  Light streamed in, so quickly it was blinding, the glare of it burning his corneas. At first glance, Odin didn’t look a whole lot better than Tyr had, except he wasn’t heaving. In fact, he looked to be barely breathing at all. Mir crawled over to him, reached out and found the faint pulse ticking in his neck.

  Mir looked up at the tall, dark-haired beauty surveying the scene with casual disinterest. “You could have killed him,” he told her furiously. “What are you playing at?”

  “He did kill my sister and bragged to me about it,” she pointed out idly. “And I’m hardly playing, Mir. He’s avoided me for months. Wisely, I should add.” She gave him the barest flicker of attention. “I’m surprised he wandered up here at all.”

  “Well he did because he’s trying to help me figure out a way to help Sydney…”

  “Yes, so you said. And who is that, exactly?” The look on Ava’s face was curious. Nothing so intense as interest, or even surprise, but a sort of bland curiosity.

  He supposed he should have expected it. “While you’ve been holed up here, eating food off trays people bring to you like some kind of servants, the entire world has been going to hell. And some of us are stuck right in the fucking middle of it.”

  “You don’t say?”

  For a second, all Mir could do was blink. Her smile was what did it. That smart ass, condescending little smile. And rage surged up inside of him. He almost never got angry, not like this. Not scream in her face, rip his hair out, and break things kind of angry. He spun on his heel, ready to turn his back on this whole shit show when Odin’s voice stopped him dead.

  “I was wrong, Ava. I was wrong in so many ways, about everything.” A hoarse cough. “And
you’re right, I have been avoiding you ever since.”

  Mir turned. Odin was still on the ground, looking up at Ava with an expression on his face that Mir had never seen before. It wasn’t that the god’s coldness had melted, but more like it had…transformed into something softer.

  Whatever. He had to find Sydney, get into her head, and get the Orobus out of it.

  “Who is Sydney?”

  Mir kept walking. He didn’t need them. He didn’t need a girl who was full of darkness or a king who couldn’t see anymore. Nobody could help Sydney. Except him.

  “You’re wrong about that, alchemist. Just like you’re wrong about her.” Ava’s soft, knowing voice did stop him. “We’re exactly what she needs right now. You, me, even that asshat over there on the floor, although it pains me to admit it.”

  He couldn’t turn around, even as she added. “And even then, we might not be enough.” And then his heart stopped beating all together as she continued, in that even, husky voice, “Have I ever told you the story of how we were all chosen?”

  “It’s not exactly a secret, although it’s not as if any of you have taken the time to come up here and have a little confab with me, either.” She threw a sheet of dark hair behind her and gestured toward a shabby, sunken couch. “You both might want to get comfortable.” At Mir’s look, she laughed. “Morgane and I were brought up properly, you know. Our parents did right by us. So please, have a seat because this might take a while.”

  Her eyes gleamed while they tracked Odin’s halting progress toward the couch, her gaze never leaving him, not until he was completely stationary on one end. Mir took the other end, the frame beneath them creaking ominously.

  All around them the darkness dropped like a shroud, curtaining off the sun, plunging them into a dim sort of semi-light that seemed to issue from Ava herself. It felt like a cocoon, as if the rest of the world had just been shut out completely. “The Orobus chose us mortals, long ago, maybe even before conception, to serve a particular purpose. His purpose, just so we’re clear. So far, this includes Celine, myself, and now this Sydney person. Judging from the look on your face, I’m assuming she means something to you.”