The Banished Gods Box Set: Books 1-3

by L. A. McGinnis

  But they were getting close.

  “There. Up ahead, where it splits, go to the right.” Mir touched her right shoulder lightly, and she followed by instinct, her body noting they seemed to finally be climbing instead of descending.

  Not a single claw had swiped at them, not a single demon lingered over them. As Loki had predicted, whatever darkness was inside her swept them away, like a giant exterminator’s cloud of poison. She only hoped it continued to work, at least until they reached torchlight.

  “There it is, do you see it?” Loki had her other shoulder. His hand had been steadily steering her the entire way, sometimes it had been the only thing tethering her to reality. Other times, she resented him, even hated him as he pushed her onward through this horrible, depthless dark.

  Unless her eyes were lying, the dark grew brighter, a flickering, golden light. “Torchlight.” She practically sobbed in relief.

  “Yes. Torches. Which means guards. And eyes everywhere,” Tyr warned from behind them. “So Vali and I’ll go first, then you and Loki. Mir and Fen can watch our backs.” A low, feral growl from far behind confirmed the wolf had heard every word.

  The first step into the light, though she was pressed tightly within the circle of bodies, felt like they stood within a spotlight. Tyr and Vali her shield to the front, armored and bristling with weapons, Mir to her left, Fen poised in lethal readiness at her back. Loki, to his credit, still at her side, hand on her, ready to snatch her back should anything spring from the shadows. Only the faint, horrific sound of sharp things against the rock gave them any indication they were not alone down here.

  “Any idea of where we are?”

  “Lower level dungeons. We may have to go up a level, maybe two.” Loki charted out their approximate position, while Fen and Tyr flanked him, before moving as one toward a set of steps carved into the solid rock. “This way, and then we start looking for Morgane. If we’re lucky, we find her midlevel and get out of here before anything happens.”

  Ava snorted. “Luck doesn’t have anything to do with it,” she clarified, nodding to the unending rows of cells, the iron bars, the stench that lay thickly over it all. “But Loki’s right. We need to go up a level.”

  “How do you know?” Mir asked quietly. Even gently, for him.

  “Because these steps”—she nodded to the uneven, rough hewn ones they had reached—“are too hard on her shoes. Which is why she tends to stick to the upper dungeon cells. Or to do her torturing in the hall itself, depending on her footwear choice of the day. Plus, she has more of an audience there.” The rest of the way up was silent, Fen barely squeezing himself through the narrow, curving stairway, Mir and Loki keeping her firmly sandwiched between them.

  The next level proved busier, more demons lingering, less willing to give way to them as they passed, hissing and clicking their teeth together. But so far, unwilling to attack. Ava kept moving, but her eyes never left the walls, the ceiling, the dark corners, waiting, just waiting for one of the creatures to drop into the middle of them and begin chewing away.

  And then she felt her. Felt Morgane.

  “Up there. Up ahead.” Her feet took over for her head, and she burst out of the middle of the pack, making for a cell…

  Ava’s mouth went dry. Curled on the floor lay her sister, naked, bone-white, dirty and bloody. Her stomach caved in. Unmoving on that shiny, bloody floor. Ava’s vision blurred for a second, before focusing wholly on her sister. Morgan’s chest rose. Slightly, and too slowly, but it rose and fell. She was still alive.

  Alive, and they were not too late. “Morgane?” Ava whispered tentatively. “Sister?” Dull, exhausted eyes drifted open, fluttered closed then opened again, focusing slowly, painfully on her through the bars. Morgane tried to raise her head. Failed as it flopped back to the floor with a heavy thud.

  Morgane’s mouth loosened, and the look, the look in those eyes made Ava’s knees buckle as a desperate, frail whisper slipped out, “No. No, no, why did you come? Why? Don’t you know what she’ll do to you if she finds you here?” She struggled then to push up, her hands, oh God, her wrists, they were nearly cut through…

  Loki shouldered up beside her, barely breathing, his eyes darting all over her, moving from her broken body, to her wrists, to the matted, bloody hair, to the bruises, dark and blotchy, covering most of her torso. Ava could feel his heart hammering, too fast, from where she stood. Putting a hand over his, where it clenched the bars, she murmured, “Hang on, Loki. We’ll get her out of there. Let Fen pull open the door, you’ll have to give him some space…”

  But beneath their hands, the iron gave way, a high, keening whine filling the air as the bars bent and twisted, the metal glowing red-hot under her fingers, so hot she yanked back, startled. Loki stepped through the smoldering hole and sank to his knees beside Morgane and gathered her into his arms as he rocked her, his head bowed low, back and forth.

  He didn’t know where to start. Not with her hands, practically divided from her wrists, or the pattern of deep, bloody welts crisscrossing her back, marked every inch by wounds made from something large and sharp and especially wicked. Not the bruising, or the dried blood and dirt encrusting her.

  For a moment, the world stopped. As if everything froze around them, as if his magic faltered and died at the sight of evil things that had been done to her.

  “Let me take a look at her, brother, let me in there for a moment, then she’s all yours.” Loki felt Mir push him to the side, but he made no move to remove her, only separated them enough so he could inspect her arms, look at the wrists where the thick, iron bands had cut and torn, then at her head, where blood-encrusted blonde hair was matted down to her skull. “I can take away her pain, my brother. And I can fix all of this, once we are out of here.” He shot them both an apologetic look. “But not before. If I use my magic down here, it will bring your daughter running.” His smile faded. “And we don’t want that.”

  Loki turned Morgane slightly in his arms, wincing as she moaned. “I’m sorry, baby, I have to pick you up now, we’ve come to take you home. Then we’ll stop the pain. Mir can heal you.”

  “Not yet. You can’t take me out of here.” Her weak, shaking voice was slurred with pain, yet full of quiet determination. “There’s something I’ve gotta do, first.”

  Panic shone in Loki’s eyes. “If you think, for a moment, I’ll consider leaving you down here for another second, you are mistaken. We’ve come to rescue you, so don’t even say whatever you’re about to say.” He hated the note of sheer desperation that crept into his voice, but neither could he mask it. “I love you, Morgane.” Her eyes widened, but he had to say it now, in case there wasn’t another chance. “So you cannot expect me to wait. I barely made it through these last few hours, knowing where you were. Knowing what she was doing to you. Don’t ask me for anything else. I can’t…”

  “You love me?” she husked, wonderingly. “Really?”

  He dipped his head so his mouth was pressed to her ear, so only she could hear. “I love you, Morgane Burke. I have loved you since the moment I scooped you up off the pavement. Which is why I’m taking you out of here right now.” She moaned as he shifted her, trying to avoid hurting her.

  He nestled her carefully against his chest, letting her settle herself into a better position and she moved until she gazed into his face. “But you can’t.” There was a hint of desperation in her voice. “You don’t understand. She’s about to forge an alliance with someone stronger than any of you, even Odin. She means to take over the world, and turn you all into slaves.” Loki felt Tyr’s attention riveted to every word. “So if you take me out of here now, chances are, we won’t find out what she’s doing. But if I stay, there’s a chance to stop her.” Even though every word was a struggle, her eyes were bright with expectation by the time she finished.

  “Why do you care?”

  “Because I’m the linchpin in this whole deal. And I want to know why.”

  As Loki stared down at he
r, he wished she was wrong. Wished it wasn’t true. Instead, he went against every instinct telling him, no, ordering him to take her away from here, run, run until no one could find them again…

  And gave her what she asked for.

  “All right.” Lips tightening, he countered, “All right, but what’s your plan? And don’t even think about asking us to leave because that’s off the table. We stay. Close. And this offer is not open-ended. A few moments, at most, is all I’m willing to give you.” He ran a hand over her, intending to soothe, and she shuddered in agony. “Come on, Mir, there has to be something you can do for her?”

  “Gods, not unless you want your daughter to come running, in which case, we’re all dead.” Though Mir’s eyes were cold as ice, his voice wavered. “Convince her to leave. Come on, Loki, this is crazy.”

  Fen dropped to his knees beside them. “Let me try. Hel’s magic and mine are similar. My guess is she won’t notice. At least, not right away.” Concentrating, he ran his fingers over the head wound, then the bruising, the wrists, the knee shifted horrifically out of place. After several long, tense moments, he rocked back, and Morgane relaxed into Loki’s arms with a sigh. “That’s the best I can do, we leave the blood and dirt in place, it’ll mask some of the healing. I left most of the bruising, but fixed the internal damage so you can breathe a bit better. The repaired knee will give you mobility, should you need it.”

  Morgane nodded in thanks, her face relaxed, her eyes clearer, and squeezed Loki’s arm. “This’ll work, I swear it will.” Those words, coming out of her mouth, sounded like an empty, hollow lie.

  So he murmured a lie in return, “I know it will,” his tongue tasting the ash.

  Ava crouched down next to them, two deep, angry lines on either side of her pinched mouth. “Figure this out quick and don’t do anything stupid, sis.” The shadows dancing in her eyes promised death for Hel. Loki only hoped she didn’t burn the entire realm down alongside her.

  He held Morgane for as long as she would let him. Minutes ticked past before she finally lifted his hand and kissed it. The soft, tender press of her lips, that wet, warm pressure nearly made him pick her up and storm out, promise or no. “I need to do this. We’ve got to do this if she really is planning such a thing. What if this is our only chance to stop her? I’m not going to doom everyone by running away. Give me this Loki, if it doesn’t work, then all bets are off.” As she implored, he didn’t like it and neither did anyone else.

  “It’ll work,” Morgane insisted, looking up at him resolutely. Looking over his shoulder, she urged, “The rest of you are going to have to hide down here, somewhere. At the end of the corridor, there’s a…”

  “I know what’s down here,” Ava interrupted. “We’ll be waiting, should you need us. Just shout.”

  Loki watched them scatter to dark corners. Desperately, he tried one final time to talk her out of this suicide mission. “You don’t need to fix this, when it wasn’t your problem to begin with. There has to be another way. I can’t watch you go through any more pain.” He begged quietly, pushing the tangled, matted hair out of her beautiful face. “You’re sure it’s going to be tonight?”

  “She bragged about it. A few hours, she said, which means you have to leave, so I’m waiting for her when she comes back.” Loki’s eyes flashed between her, the cell, the melted iron bars.

  “It’s going to kill me, you know, locking you back inside.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry.” She stretched out a tentative hand, rotating her wrist gingerly. “But I’m better, almost no pain, see?”

  She was so cold against him, her body a mess, deep shadows underneath her eyes, but when she smiled up at him, the only thing he saw was her smile, the joy, the hope, and a future. She leaned in and brushed a kiss across his lips. “I love you, too, just so you know.” Pure happiness danced in her eyes. “I only wanted to hear you say it first.”

  Pressing his forehead against hers, Loki untangled her from his lap, hating she was touching the gore-caked floor, hating she was so dirty, so horribly bruised, still. As if reading his thoughts, she smiled up at him, and whispered, “When we get home, I would love a bath. A really, really long hot bath.”

  “I can arrange that for you.”

  “I figured you could.” She paused, and he waited, letting her find the words. “Thank you for this. I know it would be easier to take me home. I know this way is harder, but there’s something that’s been nagging at me, Loki, and if I don’t figure it out, if I let this go…” She stopped.

  “I understand. Which is why I’m leaving you here. But my understanding only goes so far,” he added, rising to his feet. “And don’t be surprised if I decide to drag you off at the first sign of shit hitting the fan.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he sighed. “I won’t. I’ll want to but I won’t. Once you get your answers, then this farce is over and we are out of here.”

  Stepping back through the bars until he stood beside the others, he reformed the web of bars with a wave of his fingers. As the others melted back into the darkness between the flicking torches, he transformed into a hawk and took wing, heading for the next set of steps.

  The ones leading directly up into the Great Hall.

  Alighting atop the wooden beam spanning the hall, he preened his feathers, surveying the empty space. Moisture glistened on the walls like dew, and the silence seemed to suck everything into it, as if even the light of the torches was fainter here, swallowed up by the vastness around them.

  Forever, it seemed to take forever, but he finally heard Hel approaching and gagged as he saw what she was dragging behind her. Morgane, her pale, white skin glowing against the onyx, gave a faint grunt as Hel dropped her to the floor.

  “Now stay there like a good girl. It won’t be long now, and once my partner comes, this will all be over in the blink of an eye.”

  Loki stopped fidgeting and went perfectly still as the air in the chamber changed.

  39

  The humans had a saying up top.

  ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.’

  Her bird was currently bleeding all over the pristine floor of the Great Hall. Hel had worked the situation perfectly, double-crossing that idiot Odin, taking advantage of his jealousy and anger to pry the girl’s soul from his grasp. The moron didn’t even know what a treasure he’d had. And now she had this brand new partnership to look forward to.

  More room for advancement. So to speak.

  And damn it, she had so much time invested in this. Years. Centuries. For Fucking Ever. But everything was about to pay off, in a matter of minutes. Her stomach did a little flip-flop of joy.

  As an extra special bonus, she’d get to screw over her father and Odin at the same time. “This is simply delicious,” she said to no one in particular. Well, to Morgane, since she was the only person in the room. “So delicious, in fact, I think I’ll be celebrating, once this final task is done. Perhaps with some shopping. Or a long trip. I’m still debating what to do first.”

  She risked a look at the girl. Still no response. It was infuriating, all this hard work going to waste. Even her gloating wasn’t making an impression. “I wonder where Ava is, up on Earth? Maybe that’s where I’ll head to first. Take a moment to visit my very favorite human. You know, check in, see how she’s adjusting to normal life.”

  It was intoxicating to savor the way Morgane turned her head. Slowly, because of the pain, of course. How her arms shook as she braced herself up, how the bruising painted delicate, overlapping watercolor patterns all over her body. Delightful, really.

  “I am going to miss you both, truth be told. But not as much as I’ll enjoy destroying your world. Crushing it under my expensive, handmade heels. Devouring it, bit by bit. I believe I might start with sweet little Ava. I do so enjoy listening to her scream.”

  A whisper of warning crept into Hel’s chest when Morgane’s only reaction was to curl her fingers against the stone beneath her. “But then again, I might start wi
th my father. There are so many crimes he has to answer for, after all.”

  Some small, incomprehensible sound issued from the girl’s battered face, masked by the fall of blood-darkened, snarled hair. “What was that? I can’t quite hear you.”

  “Please.” The girl’s voice quaked. Fear, Hel decided, was her very favorite thing in the whole, wide world. Besides, she might as well enjoy these last few, precious moments with her new toy, before it became irrevocably broken.

  “Please what?” Hel prompted.

  “Please don’t hurt them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I love them.” Morgane began to shake, her arms trembling, her hair dragging on the ground, as broken, raspy sobs echoed through the chamber. As Hel stilled, Morgane husked out the words she’d been waiting for. “Fine, you win. I’ll give you whatever you want.”

  “Leave them alone and I’ll give you what you want…” Morgane’s voice trailed off as she coughed, the sound wet and rough. “Anything you want, if you will just tell me why.” Tears fell to the stone beneath her face. “Why are you doing this? What are you after? And why did you choose me?” Hel grinned, delighted.

  “Why?

  “Because even if I was free of this place, do you seriously think the nine realms would be enough for me?” Hel shuddered in sinful pleasure. “The God of Chaos offered me everything. The entire universe, the whole galaxy. So of course, I jumped at the chance. Incidentally, he’s the one who named your soul as the price, though I have no idea why.” Licking her lips, she relished what came next. “But in the end, I’ll get what I want.”

  “I’m to be a queen, you see. In his new world. A beautiful world of darkness with an endless supply of slaves. It will be a lovely place to rule. A place worthy of me.” The back of her neck prickling, Hel swore she felt eyes on her, but searching the darkness overhead, she found nothing. She was only jumpy, of course.