The Banished Gods Box Set: Books 1-3

by L. A. McGinnis

  “Odin exiled him. He banished Loki to the darklands for bringing you here, and he’s probably going to send my ass there next. So yeah, you’ve FUBARed everything up royally again.”

  Morgane clung to the edge of the metal table, eyeing the pile of bloody gauze. “Sorry. Had I known that almost dying on the street would inconvenience you so, I would have tried to avoid it. Now…” Morgane drew a deep, calming breath. “Explain what you just said to me…in plain, simple English. What are the darklands? How did you use magic to heal me? And when will Loki be back?”

  Mir sighed, a look of bleak desperation crossing his face, and her stomach curled in on itself. As if these darklands were an actual place and Loki had actually been banished there and this was exactly what it sounded like. A terrible punishment devised by a scary man who acted like he ruled the world. But she lived in a major city in the First World and scary stories were just bullshit. Right?

  Mir’s gruff voice broke through her rising panic. “It’s as real as the world you live in every day. And trust me, Loki’s stuck there. I used magic because I can, and because you would have died otherwise. None of this is what you think it is, and you, Morgane Burke, are in way over your head.”

  Who did he think he was talking to? She had survived losing her family and crawling back out of the darkness. She had survived monsters. She’d survived all by herself for two whole years. She would get through this too.

  Lifting her chin higher, she managed, “I’m sure I can handle whatever you throw at me.”

  “I highly doubt it.”

  “Try me.”

  Every menacing step he took toward her made her doubt those words. “We are not military. Or Special Forces. Or fucking CIA. Or anything else from your pitiful, human world. We’re immortal gods from another realm. Banished to this world as punishment, many eons ago. Tasked with protecting your kind from the demons of the Underworld.” His eyes frosted over as he crossed the room. “And you’d better fucking hope you never meet the bitch who holds their leashes.

  “We’ve been here since you people wallowed in the mud. Watched you rise and build and take over like cockroaches. Protecting your kind, fighting the demons, and all the while, we‘ve been waiting to escape this place. Waiting for all of this to end.” He waved a hand around the room while his eyes narrowed to mere slits, and a chill rippled down her spine. “But you know what? It never fucking does.” A thin, joyless smile stretched his lips.

  “But I digress. The darklands are another realm on another plane, which Odin uses strictly for punishment. Someone like you”—he looked her up and down before dismissing her completely—“wouldn’t last a minute.”

  “So you’re saying that these darklands are an actual place? Some hellish purgatory where Loki is languishing for saving me? And the Viking—”

  “Odin.” He cut her off. “For the gods sake, if you’re going to address him, call him by his fucking name. Odin, the All-Father, the One-Eyed, or Fader, it means…”

  “Father. Yeah, I know.” Morgane chewed her lip, dodging his questioning look. “English Lit. I went to college, I learned stuff.”

  The room seemed to close in around them. Loki had found her, brought her here so Mir could save her life. Now Loki was being punished for it. “So Odin exiled him to this place? But he also said there’s a way to get him back, right? And you’ll take me to him?”

  He guffawed. That’s what her grandpa might have called it. A superficial, scoffing laugh, given by the elders when they think the children are in over their heads. And it did what Odin hadn’t been able to do, or even the damn demons. It pissed her off. She raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I see. You don’t think I can, do you?”

  The laughing stopped and Mir walked over to her and got in her face. Real, real close. “My doubts have nothing to do with you. I don’t think either of us can bring him back. The darklands are one step above the Underworld itself. Odin is the only person capable of bringing a soul out of there. And I’m willing to bet he won’t release him. Especially not for you.”

  Morgane frowned at him. “Noted. So, best-case scenario, what will Odin expect?”

  “Things you’re not willing to do.” Mir leaned back against the other table, which groaned under his weight.

  “Just tell me, Mir.”

  “Begging, for one.” He crossed his arms, snorting before adding, “He especially enjoys groveling. It makes his day.”

  “Not my strong suit.” It bugged her he knew that about her already, only having met twice.

  There was the ghost of a smile on his face when he met her eyes. “No shit.”

  “Odin will expect you to plead for Loki’s life, he’ll most likely toy with you for a while, although for the life of me, I can’t imagine why he’s playing this game with you. But maybe we can both pray he brings Loki back in one piece.” He straightened. “Because the demons? They infest every inch of the darklands. Along with a host of other monsters. And Odin sent Loki in there weaponless.”

  Morgane blanched. “How long has he been gone?” How long had she been out?

  He checked the clock hanging on the tiled wall above them. “Seven hours now. Too long,” he muttered, “way, way too long.”

  “Oh, God. Help me up.” She clung to him as she sat up, hung heavily from his arm while she set her feet on the cold floor, using his weight for an anchor, and heaved herself upright. “I‘ll make you a deal. You get me up to see Odin, and I’ll do whatever I have to do to free Loki.” Stifling the urge to throw up, she felt pain crawl through her. “Shit.” The room spun around her as she forced herself to breathe through her nose.

  “Hurts like a bitch, doesn’t it?” But Mir’s voice gentled slightly while he steadied her. “Look, I know the pain’s worse, but it was the only way to save you, sweetheart. Otherwise, you’d be dead.”

  “Yeah, well, I can deal with it, thanks. All I have to do is find out what Odin wants, right? How hard can it be?” Morgane shuffled her feet, one in front of the other, so slowly Mir finally took pity on her and slung an arm around her waist. “Much better. Where are we going?”

  He nodded toward the door. “Odin‘s Throne Room. Through there, down the hall, then we gotta head two floors up.”

  He might as well have told her she had to run a marathon. But she couldn’t let Loki down. Even clinging to Mir, it felt like a lifetime before she stumbled into the elevator and heard the rattle and click as the doors slid shut. “You guys seriously need to do something about this thing.” The machine hummed and shook, but she could have crawled upstairs faster.

  When Mir pushed the double doors open, a gasp slipped out of her.

  Mir chuckled. “Yeah, yeah, I know. That’s what all the chicks say.

  “Size, it seems, does matter.”

  11

  Morgane stepped into a dream.

  The columns holding up the rib-vaulted ceiling, cut through with magnificent flying buttresses, were pure white marble threaded with shimmering veins of moonstone and onyx. Each one a massive pillar of solid rock supporting the stone vaulted ceiling forty feet overhead. The floor beneath her feet was made of the same gauzy, nebulous marble, so perfectly white it seemed she was walking on snow. Except it wasn’t cold.

  It was the stillness of the place that caused her to stumble slightly, as if the space itself was gripped by an unnatural presence. This was a hall meant to make you feel insignificant. Worthless.

  At the end, so far away it made him appear small, lounged Odin. His tall, lean body thrown back, his alabaster hair shining, his attention focused on two huge, black birds perched on the back of a throne that looked suspiciously as if it were made of gold.

  She took one halting step then another, the marble cool and slick beneath her feet. This place may have been designed to make her feel weak, but the farther she walked, the stronger she felt. Angrier.

  Who the hell was he to punish Loki? Who the hell was he to think he was better than anyone else?

  It might have been the b
ored look on Odin’s face, or maybe it was the whole damn groveling scenario that didn’t sit quite right with her. Or maybe it was him sending her lover into hell out of what she assumed was spite. But by the time she completed the insanely long, unnecessary walk and stood in front of his throne, rage vibrated through Morgane.

  The slightest brush of Mir’s fingers against her forehead, and the last of the pain drained away as he pushed her gently forward, “That should help for a few moments, but no longer, understand? Don’t do anything stupid.” She nodded, never taking her eyes from the pompous asshole in front of her.

  She kept her shoulders back, moved forward until her toes brushed the bottom step of the dais. It took almost a full minute before Odin turned from the ravens and finally commanded, “Speak, girl.”

  That mocking smile of his held all the warmth of a viper. She should learn obedience, she really should. But she couldn’t stop the hate from spiraling higher. “Odin.” She dipped her head an inch. The only concession she was willing to make to this arrogant bastard. “I would…ask a favor.” Fabric rustled as he changed position.

  “Well, this should be fun. I take it you think you’re above begging?”

  In answer, she lifted her head defiantly and held his gaze unwaveringly.

  “Ah, I see. So very proud, aren’t we? What favor can I grant you, human?” Smug, sneering arrogance lurked behind his question.

  “Bring Loki back from where ever you sent him. He shouldn’t have to pay the price for saving me.” Her voice was calm, clear, and didn’t have a hint of humility in it. She was hoping Odin didn’t notice.

  His gaze fixed on her, he smiled, and Morgane thought he would be utterly beautiful were he not so completely hollow. Cruelty ran in his veins instead of blood. The kind that only found pleasure in pain.

  “Well. Someone has to pay. It might as well be him. Or perhaps you’d rather it be you? What are you willing to give me in return for such a favor?” Morgane paused. Considered the hint of greed lining Odin’s offhand, casual words.

  “It seems to me we each have something the other wants. You already know what I want.” She forced a lazy smile to her lips. “Why did you ask me here, Odin?”

  The stillness around them seemed to get even quieter as Odin leaned forward, any pretense at banter vanishing from his voice. “What exactly did you see when you died? Where did you go? And why were you sent back?” His eyes glittered greedily.

  Shit. She’d spent years trying to outrun these memories.

  To bring Loki back, she could do this. A quick, sideways glance over to Mir steadied her as she started. “The place I went was nothing but darkness, and it was ice cold. But it was quick, every time I died and came back, the process was quick. Too fast for me to tell you much of anything, really.” Those eyes of his turned into grey, glassy lakes. “But I swear, the demons? There were lots of them. When I was dying, it was like tumbling down a well, a well lined with millions of them, the demons and the faces of the dead. The whole place smelled rotten and awful. And that’s all I remember.” She debated his last question for a second. “And I didn’t have a choice, you know, to come back. The EMS guys saved me.”

  “How did they save you?”

  “They hooked me up to machines, and when we finally got to the hospital, they gave me a transfusion. Then the doctors operated. And I survived.”

  “And after that night, you could see the Grim?”

  “The demons?” Morgane let out a shaky breath. “Yeah. I already told you. That’s when I began seeing them. Everywhere.” Something inside her began cracking apart as she waited on the whim of a god. “Now, bring Loki back. Please.”

  After a few moments deep in thought, Odin gave a bored sigh and a half-hearted wave of his hand. “You truly want him back?” The smirk on his face turned terrifying as he continued. “I’ll grant your request, human. You both can have him. Enjoy.” Sagging with relief, Morgane allowed Mir to pull her away, practically dragging her out of the hall.

  “We need to hurry up. Odin’s never granted a favor before.” Mir’s voice sounded frantic, pushing through the doors, rushing her down the endless hallway. Because of his haste, a sliver of terror echoed inside Morgane.

  “You mean not to someone like me, right? Not to a human?” There had been a moment, as Odin flicked his fingers at her, granting the favor, when she thought she had sensed…something. A deception, of some kind.

  But he said he was giving them back Loki.

  “Not to anyone. Not like this. Not so easily.” Mir sounded wondering, even shocked. “We need to get to the roof, right now. That’s where he’ll be. Loki will be in rough shape.”

  The snail mail elevator climbed another six floors to the roof before she stepped out into the bright bowl of early morning, the wind catching her robe, pulling her toward a dark heap lying in the long shadows. “Loki.” His body was curled into a tight ball, and she smelled blood as she tried to roll him over. Her hands came away red and slippery in the sunlight.

  As she gaped at the blood, Mir took over. “Get out of the way, let me in there.” Loki was breathing, and Mir laid his hands on him as he moaned, his breaths fading, disappearing. The shadows hid the damage, but couldn’t hide his suffering. His breaths came in great wheezing gasps, his only sounds a series of painful moans and grunts at the smallest touch, every slight movement.

  “We’ve got to get him inside. Do you think you can you help me?”

  Morgane nodded, wincing as Mir shifted more of Loki’s weight onto her shoulders.

  In the elevator, the flickering light lit him like a corpse. He was bruised. He was damaged. He looked a hundred years older, and that was before he was underneath the bright lights of the infirmary.

  Morgane held Loki’s hand, the one that was not completely crushed, and murmured a constant stream of nonsense. Things she knew he couldn’t hear, things he wouldn’t understand, and things she never would have told him if she wasn’t absolutely sure he was dying. While Mir worked frantically, all she could do was hang on and whisper the useless things she needed him to hear before he went.

  As the pile of bloody gauze grew, her hopes faded. Dear God, he was…shredded. There was no other way to describe it. The wounds of countless claws and teeth covered him. “How is he not already dead, Mir?” she whispered, her voice hollow. There was almost nothing left of the man who had come to save her, who had made love to her. Who had made her feel beautiful.

  “Because nothing can kill an immortal in the darklands, they can only be injured. It’s like the Catholic equivalent of hell, where you’re torn apart by demons. Repeatedly.” Mir paused. “But now that he’s out? One immortal can kill another, which means if Odin truly wants Loki dead for defying his orders, then this is it. He’s done for and neither you nor I can do a thing to stop it.”

  Morgane wrapped both her hands around Loki’s remaining good one, hanging on as much for herself as for him.

  She was blinded, for a moment, by the sheer force of the rage as it slammed into her. Even imagined herself killing Odin, slicing him to bits as easily as she killed the demons, but this time she’d do it slowly, viciously, draw it out. Realizing perhaps, she was capable of just as much cruelty as he was.

  “I’m going to slaughter him for this.” She hissed, focusing on Loki’s face. “I’m going to watch him bleed out all over that fucking white marble floor of his.”

  “Not a good train of thought to pursue right now. Besides, like I said, only an immortal can kill another immortal. Let’s just get—”

  “This doesn’t piss you off? This doesn’t seem just the teensiest bit unfair to you?”

  Mir worked desperately fast now, his hands a blur as he ran them over and over Loki’s wounds, but every time the bleeding stopped in one place, it started in another. As he worked, he talked, faster and faster, as if time was running out and things needed said. “Odin doesn’t play fair. And he doesn’t do anything for anybody but himself. He’s in control of this world, which mean
s he doesn’t have to play by our rules.”

  His gaze flicked up to Morgane’s, and fear crawled up her spine. “Let me tell you something, and this time, try to understand what I’m saying. Loki is the reason we’re here, on your planet, fighting these things you call demons. Loki precipitated the destruction of our world, the end of our culture, caused us to be banished to this place. So if Odin’s judgment seems harsh to you, keep in mind what your lover cost us. Everything. We’ve spent the last two thousand years being stuck here, among the likes of you. We were once gods of a glorious realm, now we’re prisoners. Odin can do with us as he wishes and no one can stop him.”

  He raised his head long enough to meet her gaze. “Least of all you.”

  Staring back at his face, she saw the truth in his eyes as he finished, “He gave Loki back to you to punish you for your pride and insolence. So you could watch him die.” Shaking his head, he laid a hand over his friend’s chest. “For both of us to watch him die.”

  “You can’t save him, can you?” The bleeding continued while Loki grew paler. His lips turned gray. He was almost gone, Morgane realized with a start, the hand clasped in hers beginning to cool.

  “Fuck. Probably not. I’m not giving up though. I’ve got more magic I can try, and there’s other things… I am not giving up. Hang on, brother.”

  She watched in fascination as blue curls of lights emanated from Mir’s hands, spreading over Loki’s body. Morgane let Loki’s limp hand slip from hers. “You keep trying. I’m not giving up either.” The stairs were infinitely faster than the elevator, even with her legs feeling as if they might go out from under her at any moment. When the doors swung inward on silent hinges, and the cavernous, milky hall echoed loudly with every footfall slapping against the pristine, white floor, she half-wondered if Mir was the only one entertaining false hopes tonight. But if Mir couldn’t save Loki, maybe there was still a chance she could.

  Odin wanted groveling? Then groveling was what he’d get.