The Banished Gods Box Set: Books 1-3

by L. A. McGinnis

  She gave the barest of nods, her hands curling around the edge of the table as if leashing herself to reality with that tight grip on the wood.

  “May I ask you a question, Celine?” He kept his voice gentle, his eyes riveted on her bandaged head again before drifting down over her thin, pale arms.

  “How did you get those bruises?”

  “Bruises?” She looked at him blankly for a moment. When he pointed, she followed his finger to the dark purple marks covering her arms and rubbed them absentmindedly. “Oh. I’m not exactly sure. It might have happened when I fell or tried to get away from the mugger. They said I was robbed, since they found me in an alley and someone tried to shoot me, but the bullet misfired. Officer O’Neill explained that’s what happened to my head.” She pointed needlessly to the bandage on her temple.

  But Fenrir’s inner beast was too focused for the explanation to send him off the scent. He smelled the man’s scent on the backpack now, and he knew.

  Fury started building inside Fenrir, a steady, even burn, like the orange glow of embers that have been stoked too long and are only waiting for some dry tinder to explode. He couldn’t stop staring at the bruises on her arms, the ones covering her neck. So many marks across that fair, white skin. So many fingerprints. Covertly, he sniffed the air. She smelled fresh, like rain or cedars in the snow, bright and clean and white. But the undercurrent of foulness, the residue of what had happened to her in that alley still lurked beneath.

  The backpack was covered with the man’s scent. Male, human, older. The smell of lust still clinging to it. Hatred shuddered through Fen. Hatred and something far deeper. He needed to protect her. He needed to figure out how to make this right, but in the meantime, more than anything, he yearned to keep her safe.

  With that foul smelling backpack sitting between them on the table, Fen watched the woman in front of him, emptied of all that vibrant awareness. “I’m sorry, Celine. I’ll do whatever I can to help you. Anything. Just tell me what you need.”

  Fenrir’s eyes were becoming too big for his face, growing far too wide and far too intense. But she liked them, she thought. She liked how dark blue they were, how depthless, framed by all that long, black hair. She thought she could lose herself in them, lose herself and never, ever come out, like they were safe and kind and surrounded by a face that, now that she took a good, long look at it, was actually very… Well, she didn’t even know what to call it.

  She’d call it handsome, but that was far too gentle of a word. He wasn’t gentle. Not that he hadn’t been anything but perfectly sweet to her, there was just something different about him that she couldn’t put her finger on.

  He’d eat little boys like Anderson Thompson for lunch and not even break a sweat.

  “Oh my God.” She swayed a little and doubled her grip on the table. “I just remembered something. It hit me, like out of nowhere.”

  “What?” God, he hoped it wasn’t what had happened in the alley, not yet, anyway. Not until he had had hunted down and killed the bastard who had done this to her.

  “I remember a name. Anderson Thompson. He must be…someone I know. I need to get my phone open. How soon will your friend be able to help me, Fen?”

  Chapter 7

  Morning was barely breaking when they headed out. Fen tried to talk her into letting him take both devices and bring them back, but Celine had lost her memory not her spine.

  “Nope. These belong to me, and they’re the only solid leads I have of my old life. I’m not letting them out of my sight. Like you’d do any different if you were in my shoes?” She scoffed, glaring up at him, daring him to disagree. And he hadn’t. At least she’d left the bat behind. So now they were heading downtown, and he was scrambling internally trying to figure out how he was going to swing this. Loki had managed with Morgane, how hard could it be?

  Oh yeah, he’d spent seven hours in the darklands and almost died, that’s how.

  And Celine had no memory. The only thing she had was the lifeline he’d inadvertently thrown her when he’d offered up Mir’s services. He didn’t even know if the bastard would help.

  “How much further?” Her demand made Fen’s feet slow ever so slightly. Surrounded by mortals, he was beyond nervous. Celine was someone people stared at when she passed. Men, women, children. Men because they had to get a first look, then a second, just to double check to see if she was real. Women, for pretty much the same reason. In fact, to his dismay, everyone stared at Celine. Her pale face was perfect, white skin stretched over a delicate frame, high cheekbones and a slanted forehead, and chin with a shallow cleft topped by full lips. But it was those gray, clear eyes rimmed with almost pure black lashes that caught you, and surrounded by a halo of long, white hair, she looked otherworldly, almost Fae, if you believed in that sort of thing.

  Which, of course, he did.

  The problem was, everyone was looking at them. Every single person.

  “Another six blocks. But I need to call Mir before we go up. I’ve got to make sure he can…has time to look at your phone today.” She shot him a look that clearly informed him Mir would be looking at her phone today if it was the last thing he did.

  “Fine. I’ll wait. It’s not like I have anything else to do.” They ducked into a café and snagged a table by the window. Fenrir was a complete mess. He couldn’t deny it. He was out among the humans. During the day. Okay, it was so early it wasn’t technically quite day yet, but still, he was out among the humans. Not something he did. Ever. Mostly for their protection, if he was being truthful. Didn’t want anyone to get eaten up accidently. He pulled up Mir’s number and punched in a short text with slightly shaking fingers.

  “So what kind of a name is Mir?”

  “Um, it’s short for…Mirmir. I think it’s an old family name. Uh, German or something.” Gods, he sounded so lame.

  “And Fen. What’s that short for?” He blinked and carefully hit the send button on the phone. How the hell was he supposed to answer that? “C’mon Fen, seriously. I really don’t think it’s too much to ask. You know my whole name. You even know where I live.” She twirled round and round on her seat, like a little kid. He found it completely endearing. “You snuck into my apartment in the middle of the night, and we ended up having this whole weird negotiation thing about insurance and phones, and now I’m following you to a stranger’s place so he can unlock my phone. Trust me, I’m asking for virtually nothing at all, considering I don’t actually have a death wish. I just want to know your name. That’s all. So give it up.”

  “Fenrir. My name’s Fenrir.” A flicker of emotion crossed her face, nothing much, just enough that the hair on the back of his neck rose.

  “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Although he wasn’t sure he liked that small, secret smile playing on her face, while a feeling of unease prickled through him. “So tell me, Fenrir, what were you doing in my dream?”

  Her smile grew a bit wider, and she showed her teeth this time, her canines every bit as white as his while her eyes narrowed down to slits. “Seriously, Fen. Tell me right now. What was the big, bad wolf doing in my dream?”

  Fenrir couldn’t think of a worse place to be. Stuck in the human world, with a tiny, pissed off mortal in front of him and a crowd of hungry ones at his back, pushing and shoving to get their McWhatevers and their extra-large McCoffees before they went about whatever the fuck it was they did with their days. Lying wasn’t something he did. He’d never learned how. Seriously, the opportunity seldom arose. Hunt, kill, sleep, fuck, eat. Repeat. Pretty simple life and he’d gotten good at it. You could say he was epic at it. And now, faced by this petite, angry human with her fifty-pound backpack and her monster-sized ego, he couldn’t come up with even a single, tiny fib to save his ass.

  But that didn’t keep him from opening his mouth to try.

  The slap on his back cut his explanation short, and good thing because whatever it was he was about to say would have made things go from bad to worse. “Hey my man,
just got your text. Morgane filled me in on the whole situation on the way over. How can I help?”

  Fen watched Celine narrow her eyes at Mir as he shouldered into the space between them. Then they flared wide as she took him in. Big and military looking, his red hair positively glowing under the fluorescent lights. “Hey there, you must be Celine. Heard you got some technical issues. It’s your lucky day, since my brother here volunteered me for service. So here I am.” The words came out rough and a little choppy, like he’d just run a marathon, but other than that, he seemed perfectly normal. Besides the fact that the two of them towered over everyone else in the place by a foot.

  Oh, and they weren’t even remotely human.

  “Thank you, brother mine.” Fenrir breathed the words out like a prayer. He was so seriously going to owe this bastard when they got back. “Her phone and computer are locked, and she doesn’t know the passwords.”

  “I forgot them. I can’t remember. Which is completely different.” Celine had her feet planted like she was about to do battle with a titan, Fenrir thought, and before he could catch himself, he gently put his hand on her arm. She positively vibrated beneath his fingers. Her skin was so soft, smooth and velvety in a way he’d never felt, creamy, like the petal of a flower. Well aware his thumb was drawing slow circles on her wrist, right where her pulse was, she stared up at him, all that temper and fire fading away as her breathing turned fast and her eyes grew so dark and deep, he wanted to fall straight into them.

  Mir cleared his throat. Fen took a step away.

  “Hand them to me and I’ll get them unlocked for you, both of them.” She heaved the backpack up onto the table and pulled out the computer and the phone and gave them to Mir. He started on the phone while Fen and Celine went to great lengths not to look at each other. A second later, he handed her the phone and her face lit up with pure delight.

  “Oh my God, you are so fast, you must be a genius! Thank you. Thank you so much.” Fen realized this was her first, real lifeline. The first tangible link to the people that she knew, or had known from BTA, or Before the Accident. Peering over her shoulder, he watched her scroll down an incredibly short list. Fen saw the shadow that crossed her face, and his heart ached. He had to curl his hand into a fist to keep from touching her again.

  “Just because there aren’t many, doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of love there, Celine.” Startled, she looked up at him, and Fen stepped away, cursing himself. What was he doing? Maybe he was trying to help, but he was quickly turning into an idiot here.

  “Only about ten people, total. Mostly professors, it looks like. And a couple of names…Sabine…Rose…Bill…” She quit scrolling. “And no Anderson Thompson.” She sighed. “Damn it, I thought there’d be more. Maybe, there’d be Mom and Dad, and I could call home. You know, tell them I was…okay.” Her voice cracked on the last word. Even Mir quit working on her computer. Fen turned away, pretending to scan the room. He couldn’t imagine what she must feel like right now, lost and afraid, hoping to find family, only to find nothing.

  The hospital couldn’t locate anyone for her, and now again, there was nobody.

  “Call one of them,” Mir urged her. “What about Rose?” He smiled, and for once, it actually came off as warm and fuzzy instead of frightening and terrifying. “That sounds like a nice name, Celine. Call it and see who’s on the other end. Maybe when you hear her voice, maybe she’ll sound familiar. Surely, she’ll know you. You’ve got to start somewhere, and we’ll stay with you while you make your calls.” He glanced toward the line in front of the counter. “Actually, you guys hungry? I’ll grab us a couple of coffees and something to eat.” When he stepped away, Celine’s eyes followed him.

  “You’ve got some really nice friends, Fenrir.” Except then she looked at her phone like it was going to bite her. “I don’t know. I don’t recognize any of these names, and what if the person on the other end…” There was more than trepidation in her voice, there was outright fear.

  “Celine, you can do this, if you get scared, just hang up.”

  She stared at the phone as if she had a bomb in her hand. “I know. It’s not that. I have a feeling… I can’t explain it, I feel what’s on the other end of the line is bad. Like I don’t want to know what’s there. Does that even make any sense?” She shot him a look.

  It said, Help me, help me decide.

  Fen covered her hand with his and took the phone. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” He scrolled down to one of the professor’s names and pulled it up, held the phone out to her. “Since it’s Tuesday, why don’t you call this guy? One of your teachers? If you haven’t been in school for a few days, he might want to know why.” He handed her back the phone and watched her expression carefully. There were still nerves but not like before, before he had seen real fear at the prospect of calling one of those numbers.

  “Yeah, okay, you’re right, I’ll call him.” She hit the button and turned away, watching the stream of humanity flow by through the windows. She must have reached the man’s voicemail, because he listened to her leave a brief message. “Yeah Dr. Ellis, this is…Celine Barrows. I wanted to let you know that I was in an…accident...” She sounded jittery, but went on with her explanation while he pretended he wasn’t listening to every word. “I’m okay…and I’ll be back to class on Friday.” When she hit the end button, she shot Fenrir a trembling smile. “Okay. I have a plan. I have somewhere to be on Friday. Maybe once my computer’s unlocked, there’ll be a schedule in there somewhere, and I’ll know exactly where I should be.” She met Fen’s eyes gratefully. “Thanks. I’m sorry about all of this.” Mir shouldered between them with his hands full of coffees and piles of food smelling of grease and carbs. Fen heard her stomach rumble.

  Mir set the trays down in front of them. “Give me another minute on the MacBook while you two fuel up. For some reason, it’s being a bitch… Sorry, it’s being difficult.”

  Celine smiled into her coffee while they waited. A minute later, Mir spun the laptop around so it faced her. “So I’m in. You’ll need to set up with a new password... Just yeah, just type it in right here…yeah, there…and then a username, here. Okay, and now you’re all set. Now we just power it down and once it boots back up you’re good to go.” He flipped it around so she had full control. “So can I help you with any more of your technical needs, Miss Barrrows?” There was a light, teasing note to his voice that made her grin.

  “No, this is just…” The screen glowed, bright and beautiful. “Perfect.” She rubbed her hands on her thighs and scrolled over the icons while Fenrir watched her navigate the screen.

  So many of them. So damn many, Fen thought as her eyebrows squeezed together in concentration.

  Middle English. Sumerian History. Advance Linguistics. What exactly was she studying, anyway? Germanic Languages. Ancient Phonetics. Bronze Age proto-texts. Norse Mythology. Dolmen Excavation, Scotland. The questing arrow paused over “Norse Mythology,” and she glanced up at Fenrir, brow furrowed, as though she wasn’t sure why. Then her mouse hovered over the file called “Dolmen Excavation.” She clicked on it. Filling the screen was a long, detailed listing of documents with complicated notations, “Professor Steven McRoy, Passage Cairn,” “Professor Steven McRoy, Dolmen I Markings” and “Dolmen II Markings, Dr. Brice,” “Dig Schematics, 1954,” “Orkney Passage Grave,” “See 1984 Chamber Tomb Notes.” And an entire passworded file dedicated to “Field Museum Exhibit/ Askesan Bog site.” Almost every file had either McRoy’s name next to it, or the initials S.M.R. noted.

  “None of this makes any sense to me,” she whispered. “It’s as if these names are in some kind of code that I don’t understand anymore.” Her eyes darted from him, over to Mir, then back to Fenrir. “Maybe the old Celine Barrows knew who Dr. Brice was, and what in the hell an Orkney Passage Grave was. But this one sure as hell doesn’t.”

  Frustrated, she pushed back from the table and straight into Fenrir. She was too small, too fragi
le, too young. He’d left her helpless in a world she didn’t understand, stripped her of her defenses, of her knowledge. Whatever her strengths were, he’d taken them from her.

  “Goddamn it.” She spun around and glared up, her eyes turning from depthless to penetrating as she waved a hand at the computer screen. “What in the hell am I supposed to do with this? I can’t use any of this shit, it’s not going to help me one bit.”

  Fen just stood there like a tool. He didn’t know what to say because there was nothing to say. No defense for what he’d done.

  “Nothing makes sense to me now.” Frustrated, she blew the hair out of her face.

  Mir snapped the laptop shut, slid it into the backpack, and held the phone out to Celine. “For now, why don’t we get you back home, Miss Barrows? Safe and sound, where you’re supposed to be.” He nodded to Fenrir. “Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”

  “Sure,” she said grumpily. “Sure, let’s get me home. Wouldn’t want me to be out and about where I might get hurt.”

  “Where you did get hurt,” Fenrir pointed out before he could stop himself.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where I did get hurt.” She shot him a scornful look and went on, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “If only I could remember what happened, maybe I could keep it from happening again. Too bad I can’t. But you’re right, let’s get me home. It’s going to be a long day, and it looks like I have a lot of homework to catch up on before Friday.”

  Chapter 8

  Holding the door of the Mickey D’s open, Fenrir kept his eyes focused on Celine’s every move as she stepped through the glass doors, joining the growing crowd of early morning commuters heading to work. “I’m walking her back to her apartment.” Mir frowned, his clever eyes studying Fen then drifting to Celine. And missing nothing.