The Banished Gods Box Set: Books 1-3

by L. A. McGinnis

  Loki just laughed and snapped his fingers and the chain disappeared. “Manners, dear daughter. I would think you would treat your own brother better than that. You act like you were raised in a barn.”

  Hel hissed, her fingers curving into claws. “No, I was raised by you. Which makes my behavior self-explanatory.”

  Morgane cleared her throat. “Look, if you’re finished, can we get out of here now?” When her voice cracked on the final word, Loki’s eyes immediately flashed to her.

  “Right.” Loki shifted, putting himself between her and Hel. Stepping to her side, he draped a casual arm across the girl’s shoulders. “I came for Morgane. She shouldn’t be here and you had no right to involve her in whatever this bullshit is between you and Odin. I’m taking her home. And reminding you to keep your nose out of our affairs.”

  “Funny, isn’t it, how nobody thinks they belong down here?” Hel mused, rolling her eyes. “Fine. Take her with you, she’s been a pain in my ass since the minute she got here.” She stuck out her hand and wiggled her fingers. “As long as she gives me what’s rightfully mine before she goes. I’m feeling magnanimous. She can even take what she came for.” Hel’s face turned predatory. “Good luck getting them all out. I’m sending everything I have after you, Father.” She flashed her canines when she smiled, every bit as long and deadly as Fenrir’s, so there’d be no mistaking her for anything but the monster she was. “You’ll never make it to the river.”

  Loki merely paused for a second before continuing smoothly, “Then it’s good we came. And you’re right, we should get to it. Stay out of my realm, daughter. Stay away from Odin. And most of all”—his eyes flicked over Morgane—“stay away from her.”

  The trio of shadowy figures came forward, lingering next to Morgane. Hel noted with satisfaction the minute Loki recognized the golden god before he whirled to the girl, his voice a furious hiss. “Balder? You came down here for Balder?”

  Through gritted teeth, Morgane spit out, “Yes, I did. I came down here for him and my mother and my damn sister. And we’re leaving here with all three.” The ghosts looked at her dubiously as she pulled him close and whispered, “You can get everyone out, right?”

  “I can hear you,” Hel crooned. “And no, he can’t get all of you out. But it’ll be fun trying.” She was back to feeling pretty good about this whole cluster fuck. Until the girl turned around and flung the dagger straight at her, right before the lot of them vanished in a flash of flame and smoke. Her father’s doing, no doubt. The sliver of a dagger passed straight through her and clattered to the floor, but not before striking the wall and carving out a huge chunk of stone.

  “All right, Father. Let’s see how this goes for you.” Hel was grinning as she flew up the stairs, lined with the undulating forms of serpents and the faces of the damned. See? This was just the sort of excitement she needed, exactly what she had been missing. It had gotten so boring, sending forth her minions each night and welcoming a handful back.

  Now, as the adrenalin surged through her body, at least she felt alive.

  19

  As smoke swirled away from her face, Morgane finally stopped coughing long enough to punch Loki gently in the arm. “Smoke and mirrors, much?” But then she squeezed him, burying her face into his chest. For a moment, all she did was breathe him in before fixing her gaze on the giant wolf. She had never seen, nor imagined anything quite so large. Or frightening. “Thank you. I was in way over my head. Plus, I think Hel and I were almost at a stalemate.”

  Carefully, he cupped her face, inspecting her. “When… How did you get the dagger?” Deeming her all right, Loki knelt beside her and wrapped her in his coat. “That was brilliant move.”

  “I have Odin to thank for that.”

  Loki offered her a rueful smile, scanning their surroundings. “You might have hung onto it Morgane, it could have come in handy.”

  “I never even thought about it. I was so angry, I just threw it at her.” Her heart sank. “I should have, though. Do you really think it would have helped get us out of here? You can get us back, right?” She wanted to explain, there was so much to explain, but as they all shot appraising glances over the lip of the rock, she knew now was not the time.

  “This is my son, Fenrir. Fen, this is Morgane.” The wolf dipped his huge head. Morgane tried to smile in return, even as her spine stiffened automatically. Something inherently instinctual, she reasoned, being this close to a predator. The lupine beast was gigantic, a shaggy, black behemoth of muscle and fur and teeth.

  They were perched on the rocky edge of a drop off, stranded and vulnerable, the three ghosts hovering over the abyss. Probably wondering if they’d made the right move, Morgane figured. “Hey Mom…” When Morgane lifted her hand, the specter drifted forward, her beautiful face an older reflection of Morgane’s.

  The giant wolf nudged Loki hard, growling. Loki scowled at the increasing darkness overhead before hauling Morgane to her feet. “We have to get moving. Hel won’t make this next part easy. She’d love to trap us all down here.” He pointed at the narrow path hugging the ridge leading down to a flat plain. “We need to get down there, and then across the river. Once we reach the bottom of this cliff, it’ll be an all-out sprint to reach the edge of the bridge.”

  Morgane kept ahold of Loki’s shirt as they followed the narrow ledge, only her feet on solid ground, the rest of her hanging out over nothingness. The river roaring below sounded exactly like the monster it was, waiting to swallow them whole. The ledge they followed was smooth and well-worn, which made each step even more treacherous. And slow. Fenrir padded behind her, his body hugged tightly against the wall, the three ghosts drifting easily over the blackness.

  Morgane couldn’t stop looking at them, weirdly fascinated.

  They had moments, maybe, before Hel’s demons descended on them. They were weaponless, unless you counted Fenrir’s teeth, but even those wouldn’t do them much good, balanced precariously on a few inches of rock. She pushed against Loki’s back. “We have to move faster. Don’t worry about me, just go.” With her body squeezed tight against his back, he picked up the pace. And yet, it still seemed like hours before they stumbled into the wide, dusty sprawl of a cavern set into the wall of the ravine.

  “Better, so much better.” She breathed. At least, that was how she felt before the skittering of a thousand demons echoed through the cavern walls. “Now what?” Searching the cave, Morgane found nothing. No way out, not even a rock to use as a weapon, and the river and escape was still a hundred feet below them. Fenrir and Loki closed in front of her, forming a wall of flesh that she determined would take the demons about ten minutes to cut through. “Please tell me you have a plan?”

  “I had a plan, until you decided to bring company.” Loki growled, studying the trio of ghosts, who were looking a bit less…ghostly than they had been in the dungeon.

  More corporeal.

  Dirt showered over the opening, and she could practically feel the demons creeping down from overhead, pressing in upon them.

  Wrapping her hand around Loki’s arm, she spun him around, staring into those serious blue eyes, begging, “Can’t we do something…anything?” His face, and the regret rippling across it, were the last thing she clearly remembered before he heaved her off the side of the ledge into the great, black nothingness. As the air whistled past and the roar of the river drew closer, Morgane wondered how she could have been so wrong.

  Until her body jerked to a stop, midair. The roar of the water was still dangerously close. But she knew those ghostly fingers clamped around her wrist. She’d loved them, from womb to tomb, and as she looked up at her mother’s shifting, indistinct face hovering above her, she could have sworn it smiled. Then the roiling water reached up and snagged her feet and dragged them both into the churning river, sucked down below the surface. Morgane was flung against rocks, trapped beneath crushing chutes until breath burned hot in her lungs.

  “Damn.” Morgane broke upward through the
surface first, gasping for air while feeling around for anything solid. The rough fur she grasped must be Fenrir, and the dark shape she saw ahead of them could be her mother’s dark hair.

  “Quickly, swim, Fenrir, catch her.” The animal’s strong strokes brought them beside a limp body, and Morgane heaved her mother alongside. “Gotcha.” She could only hope Loki had her sister, and as for Balder, well, she prayed he’d made it too.

  As it was, all six of them heaved their battered bodies up on the muddy banks of the Gjoll. “We’re all alive,” Morgane stated, flopping backwards into the mud. And it was true because the three ghosts were no longer ghosts. They were as solid and scraped up and bloody as the rest of them. Loki reached for her. She rolled away. “I’m super pissed off at you. How the hell could you just fling me off a cliff like that? You had no idea…”

  “Don’t be too mad at him. He sent me straight down after you.” Morgane’s mother crawled over, smiling wide. She reached out a trembling hand before drawing her finger down Morgane’s face, as if debating whether she was real. Then her mother lunged forward, and she was wrapped up tightly in her mother’s arms. Once Ava got in on the action, the three of them turned into one big, dripping, sloppy mess. Not knowing where one ended and the other began. Exactly what Morgane had hungered for, these last two long, lonely years.

  Finally pulling back, Morgane looked at them both, her eyes starved for the sight of them.

  Thin. They were both so thin. Gaunt and hollowed out, as if the very life had been sucked from them. Both of them looking as though they were nothing but skeletons with skin stretched overtop. But they were alive. Bleeding, scraped up, and alive. And closer to freedom than she’d dared hope for yesterday.

  “God, I’ve missed you guys.” Dragging them back against her, Morgane was in overload, from the unplanned fall and this little family reunion. Which left just one last thing…

  “Loki. My brother.” Where Loki was darkness and fire mixed together, Balder was…shiny bright. Golden blonde with an all-American boy look that was probably as popular now as it had been two thousand years ago. Loki took a step forward, then another and Balder met him in the middle. Then they slammed into each other. Not a cool, hey, bro, how you doin’ hug, but the same kind she’d just thrown down with her own family. They collided into a back pounding embrace, the sort that had both of them wiping their faces afterward.

  A flare of brightness sparked in Loki’s eyes as he found hers. She smiled up at him, joy warming her heart for him. “Now what?”

  Loki pointed up at the bridge looming up over them. “Now we have to get across that.”

  Morgane, her mother, and Ava stared up at the underpinnings of the bridge. Then at the steep line of stairs carved into the stone, leading up to their end of the arched span. “It was easy enough to get in, but I had Odin’s help. He told me what to I had to say to that Modgud dude. What’s the trick to getting back? Another riddle or secret password?” Morgane couldn’t take her eyes off all those stairs. They seemed unending.

  Loki sighed. “First, Modgud is a female giant, and second, nobody ever gets out crossing the bridge.” The skittering of claws grew louder as a wall of black crested the edge of the cavern behind them. The sea of Grim were coming.

  Balder pointed to the top of the stairs. “I can get us across. I have something the giant wants. Hel wanted it too, but I wouldn’t give it to her. Denying her over and over again was what kept me sane. Well, partially sane, up there.” He tapped his finger on the side of his forehead. “Let us go.”

  Even taking the steps two at a time cost them precious moments since they were all exhausted. The closer they got to the top, the slower their steps, the more labored their breathing.

  And for every step they took, the sound of claws grew clearer. Closer. Rocks began falling all around them, dirt showering over them as the creatures skittered above them, clinging to the walls, the stones, shadowing their progress.

  The pressure on her back grew firmer. “C’mon Morgane, we’ve got to make it to that bridge before the Grim are on us. If that happens, it’ll be a blood bath.” They climbed faster. Morgane had to hand it to them, Mom and sis kept up, having gone from ghostly to flesh to wet and drowned to running from gods and demons alike.

  “Almost there.” The last words Loki husked out before they mounted the final step, and the long, endless span of bridge stretched out fifty feet ahead of them. Behind them, the claws slowed to a stop, as the presence of a thousand Grim hemmed them in between the bridge and a wall of rock.

  Loki shoved her forward, feet tripping over themselves even on the level ground, Ava right beside her, Morgane’s hand gripping her thin, bony wrist, Balder and Fen behind. Grasping Ava firmly, Morgane pulled her along, Loki’s arm braced around her waist, supporting most of her weight as her legs faltered. Together, they ran for the end of that bridge as the wall of black monsters unfurled toward them.

  Two steps. Ten. Twenty.

  “Wait. Wait.” Morgane spun against Loki’s grasp, pushed against it. “Where is my mother?” She screamed. “Why isn’t she with us?”

  The swaying, slight figure of Gwen Burke stood alone at the top of the steps, starkly outlined against the dark, empty abyss they had emerged from.

  Holding the line. Unyielding.

  “No,” Morgane whispered. “No, no, please, please, don’t let her do this. Not now.”

  Ava shot her a horrified look. Both of them lurched forward, both of them were hauled back by strong arms banding around their bodies as Fenrir guarded their retreat, snarling, snapping, growling at the oncoming mass of claws and teeth.

  And they watched helplessly as their mother was swallowed by a wave of endless black. The last of Morgane’s hope disappeared, too, as a long, agonizing scream spiraled out of her mouth.

  Loki lunged forward and scooped her up, then realizing they had seconds at best, flung her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and ran. A moment later, the band of survivors stepped onto the leading edge of the bridge together, the wood ringing hollow and dull beneath their feet. The wave of black hesitated. Stopped. Withdrew.

  The misshapen, hooded giant poised on the edge of the bridge entrance, turned, and fixed an eye on them.

  Without a backward glance, Balder strode up, whispered in the ear of the bent form, and motioned them all to follow. Numb, Morgane did as she was told.

  She had failed. She had come here to get her family back, and she had failed. The words dogged every breath, every step, every freaking second it took to cross that never-ending bridge. Reverberated in every hollow step. Echoed in every heartbeat.

  They were almost halfway across when Ava went down. First, only stopping in her tracks as if an invisible hand grasped her shoulders and held her still. Then she dropped to her knees with a faint moan of pain, an arm clamped to her stomach. Eyes wide and frightened, frantic, her other hand reaching, reaching out for Morgane’s as something, some invisible thing began dragging Ava backwards down the bridge from the direction they’d come.

  Away from them. Toward the waiting horde of demons.

  “Help her…get my sister…” Morgane screamed, reaching, fingers stretching for Ava’s as they were pulled apart, foot by foot, Ava fighting every inch of the way. “Oh God…Loki…please, don’t let them get my sister, too, please. Oh please.” Her eyes widened in panic as Loki ran for Ava, finally throwing her over his shoulder and stumbling back to them.

  “I’ve got her… Come on, Morgane, run. Just a couple of minutes more and we’re free. The giant gave us her word, she’ll guard our retreat. We’re going to make it.” Her eyes glued to her sister’s white face, Morgane knew his voice well enough to know he was scared, and from the way the wolf was bristling at Ava, she could guess why.

  “What’s wrong with her? What just happened? Was Hel trying to take her back?” Morgane’s voice rose higher and higher. “Is that what’s happening here?”

  But before she heard his answer, her eyes shuttered closed a
nd she was falling, falling as the golden bridge rose up to meet her.

  When she opened her eyes again, Mir’s white drop ceiling swam into focus before fading out again. Exhaustion still swam in her blood, heavy as iron, weighing her down until she thought it might pull her under. But the bright light he kept flashing into her eyes finally brought her back, until she shoved it away. “Can you please stop that?” Even to her, her voice sounded weary.

  A warm, reassuring squeeze of her shoulder, and humor tinged his raspy chuckle. “Told you that’d do it.”

  In return, she sighed. “Why do you always have to be such a dick?”

  “Something about you brings it out of me, sweetheart. And if you ever disappear on me like that again… You’ll be lucky if all I do is kick your ass.” If she’d had enough energy, she might have smiled, the way he’d missed her and all.

  “Enough.” Loki’s voice was so serious the whole room went silent. “What did Hel do to the sister?” Everybody looked to Mir, who shrugged, his eyes serious.

  “Not entirely sure what this is. What it looks like… It seems like, the girl’s got some sort of darkness trapped inside of her. As if she brought part of the Underworld out with her. Not even sure that’s possible though. I’m going to run some tests.”

  “Not only did she keep me prisoner down there, Hel put something inside of me. Is that what you’re saying?” Ava’s husky, deeper voice murmured right next to Morgane, as her cool, frail hand reached out and clasped Morgane’s.

  They were stretched out on tables next to each other, and as their eyes met, Morgane saw silver lining her sister’s dark blue eyes, smudges of shadow against her gaunt, hollow face. The tears welling up in her own throat were quickly swallowed down. As were the mounting questions.

  What was wrong with Ava? And Mom. Why, why had she sacrificed herself when they were all so close to escaping? Why had she thrown her life away?