The Banished Gods Box Set: Books 1-3

by L. A. McGinnis

“Got it, boss.” But still, Freyr didn’t move. “What about the others?”

  “Already talked to New York and LA. The UK is on alert but feel the threat is still too far away to take immediate action. For now. They might be surprised.” Tyr didn’t even glance up as two of the monitors went down. Street cams either burning out or being disabled. Who knew?

  Mir and Thor came in, eyes fixed on the screens, on the absolute chaos unfurling across the city.

  “All right, then. Since most of us are here, I told New York and the west coast everything. No sense in sticking to some outdated notion of secrecy. It’ll all be out soon enough, anyway.” A slight hesitation, and then Tyr continued, his voice deadly, “We may need to prepare ourselves for the worst.” The barest flicker of a glance to one of the screens had them all staring.

  The debris of the shattered Cloud Gate, its silver remnants still reflecting bits of the sky, were scattered like stars through a blackened field of rubble. The smaller pieces were being gathered up by mortals, hurtling over the yellow temporary barriers, as police scrambled to contain them.

  “Probably planning on selling those on EBay,” Freyr remarked drily. “Vultures.”

  “Soon enough, they might not have an EBay to sell them on,” Tyr said, his eyes fixed on the screens as the rest of the crowd poured over the barricades, overwhelming the uniformed police, while in the background, a cruiser caught fire. Tyr banded his hair back tightly and spun around to Thor. “How much food and water?”

  “Three weeks on site, if I count the safe houses and storage, maybe another two month’s worth.” Thor mused, calculating the numbers his head. “Mir’s got us set up with wind generators, and the water supply tapped off the city’s main water line should last us for months, if not years.”

  “Weapons and transpo are both good for now, but if this thing goes south like I think it will…” Tyr’s mouth firmed into a tight line. “Team up, switch over to combat protocol. I want every storage facility locked down, bring back as much ammo and weaponry as we can store safely on-site. And gear up. Chances are, there might be more than humans out on the streets tonight.”

  Mir sighed as another monitor went down. “I’ll handle the tech end of this disaster. Tie into the police and fire, see what I can find out. There’s got to be some sign of the bastard, or at least some way of telling where it went, once it came through.”

  Something that sounded like glee coursed through Thor’s voice as he slapped Tyr hard on the back, adding, “Looks like the vacation’s over kids, time to get back to work.”

  Chapter 40

  Celine waited for what seemed like days, but had most likely only been hours, for Fen to come home. And when he did, it was wrapped up in the shadows that he seemed to like so much. Or rather, she mused, watching them twine around him as he padded through the room on silent feet, they liked him.

  He may be well-suited for shadows, but if he was darkness then she was the moon, which meant they were perfectly suited for each other. “I see you, wolf,” she called softly into the dark and a smile curved her mouth when the footsteps stopped.

  “Just so you know, I’ve been waiting here forever.” She stretched her arms over her head and the sheet fell away, letting the moonlight play over her creamy shoulders and breasts as she arched her back. “And if you’d kept me waiting much longer, I might’ve had to rethink this relationship of ours.”

  She laughed as his deep growl came rumbling out of the dark. Blue eyes flashing, all of that toned golden flesh on display, Fen was spectacular intent as he emerged from the shadows. A coil of desire tightened inside of her in a long, delicious spiral while she rubbed her legs together in anticipation.

  Fen prowled toward her with an easy, smooth, effortless gait that belied neither effort nor haste, whisper quiet and lethally fast. If she wasn’t so attuned to him, she wouldn’t have even known he was there. But her entire body had lit up, primitively and instinctually, the moment he’d entered the room.

  Moving through the bands of moonlight, his voice was a soft echo from the darkness in between. “You’re mine, love. And if you even think about leaving me, I’ll come find you and bring you home. Over my shoulder if I have to. And then keep you in bed for a week. Or two.”

  Yes, please, Celine thought to herself with a shiver. He was everything she’d ever wanted. And more, she thought, thinking of the beast that lurked under all of him.

  “Come to bed, Fen, and make good on that promise. I’ve been waiting…” She lost the words in a gasp as he covered her with his body and pressed her deep down into the mattress. “…forever for you. Oh, my God…” And then she was just a jumble of incoherent mumbles while soft lips and sharp teeth traced patterns over her body, leaving red-hot trails that scrambled her mind and left her panting for more.

  When she did manage to struggle out, “Fen that feels delicious,” he immediately dipped his head back down, and ran his clever tongue along her neck, between her breasts. Lower still until he had her sighing. With a deft move, he flipped them, and she ended up perched astride him, staring down at a wide expanse of sleek, golden muscle.

  Fen noted how her eyes widened as her gaze followed his body. Felt the tightening of her body atop his. Her pelvis rocked slightly, as if it had a mind of its own, and his hips lifted to meet hers, causing her to gasp softly as her body arched delicately back. But when her white teeth sank into her pink, plump bottom lip, he had to work to keep his hands loose on her hips. To let her set the pace. Let her explore as she’d never been able to do.

  But Fen couldn’t stop his soft groan as her hands began an upward exploration of his torso, nor the next deeper groan when her touch moved downwards, pausing at the top of the dark trail of hair on his abdomen. There was a slightly glazed look in her eyes as they drifted back to his face, spots of color in her cheeks, her breathing ragged.

  “Forever, Fen. This is how I want it to be forever.” She drew his hand away from her hip, interlaced their fingers, and promised, “Together.”

  “Together, love.” So much tenderness etched in that beautiful face. Reaching up, he wound a lock of her platinum hair around his fingers and tugged her down to his mouth. Tasted that silky sweetness as their tongues danced together for a long moment. Her kiss grew searching, hungry, then her hands were in his hair and her hips were rocking against his. A shift, and he slid slowly up into her, seated himself fully. All that tight, velvety wetness sliding down around him, encompassing him, until she purred, her eyes never leaving his, her chest rising and falling, one hand over his heart, the other still locked with his. Letting herself adjust, Celine slowly lifted herself up and slid back down the length of him, then again. And again, so slowly, as if she wanted to draw this out forever. As if they had the rest of their lives for this.

  When her body clenched around his, he couldn’t take his eyes off her, head thrown back, her eyes half-closed, fingers tightly grasping his as if she were afraid she might fly away. So Fen held onto her and bucked upwards, once, twice, three times, hard, and when her scream echoed off the walls around them, he emptied himself into her.

  Chapter 41

  Dr. Ellis’s office at the University of Chicago was its own sort of archeological dig, Mir fumed, picking through the stacks of classwork, manila folders, and scattered textbooks. He’d been here for hours, penlight in his mouth, purpose in his heart, and so far he had jack shit to show for it.

  Throwing himself back into the man’s creaky, Naugahyde desk chair, he booted up the computer again. He’d been through it once, but there was always the possibility he might have missed something. Slim but possible.

  The glow from the screen illuminated the cramped office space, along with the heaping piles of shit. “You’d think a tenured professor would have a nicer office,” Mir mused, looking around. “A bigger, nicer office.” He practically smacked himself in the head.

  Of course the man had a better office. In his fucking house. A few clicks of the mouse gave him an address, and in seco
nds, he ghosted across town to a quiet neighborhood just outside of Lincoln Park. Standing in front of the three-story row house, Mir saw Dr. Ellis’s job as a tenured professor for what it was. A side gig.

  Because whatever his full-time job was, that’s what paid the bills. The professor’s house was a testament to what money and a damn good construction manager got you these days. By Mir’s estimate, the glass and stone monstrosity cost well over three mill, and that was before you added in the three off-street parking places and the security system. Not exactly what a professor of languages should be able to afford. Not even a tenured one.

  Gazing through the all-glass front, Mir noted the wide plank floors, the flow-through design, open all the way to the French doors leading out to the back patio. As well as the disheveled man puttering through the kitchen. With a flick of his wrist, Mir sent a pulse of energy through the house, a casual inquiry as to the structural and electronic integrity of the place. In response, the lights dimmed ever so slightly. Back-up generator, and possibly a tie in to another third power source. Good to know.

  If he’d had the inclination, Mir might have called for backup, even formed some sort of actual plan, but who had the time, really? Not when the world was going to shit and gangs were roaming the streets. Another flick of his wrist, and the whole place plunged into darkness, Mir ghosting into the middle of the living room. He ended up right in front of Dr. Ellis, who shoved his glasses up onto his head. “Who the hell are you?” He blustered, “For your information, I’ve already put a call into them. They’ll be here shortly, they promised a three-minute response time.”

  The easy way or the hard way?

  After all, the man had offered Celine a chance out of her life. “Dr. Ellis, all I need are some answers. You tell me what I need to know, and I’ll go on my way. Matter-of-fact, you won’t even remember I was here. And there won’t be any police coming to your aid. Whether you know it or not, the city is in total melt down. I highly doubt…”

  “Who said anything about the police?” Dr. Ellis’s smile grew wider. “You think I haven’t been expecting you? Barrows warned me, told me to expect trouble. Said if I didn’t hear back from him or Njor within twenty-four hours, then I was to burn everything. Which I did.” The man’s grin was smugness exemplified.

  Regrouping, Mir nodded. “Smart. Never saw that one coming, you working with them, but it makes sense. To have someone on the inside, keeping an eye on her for all that time, it explains so much. Nice house, by the way, lots of fancy gadgetry. Did Barrows or Njor happen to mention who would be coming for you?”

  A flicker of confusion crossed the man’s face, not that it made much difference with his Mr. Rogers sweater and multiple glasses perched on his head, but no, apparently, they had not.

  “Let me tell you a bit about myself then.” Mir went on, conversationally, herding the man backwards toward the patio. With every step they took, he felt the pulse in the house die, as his magic coursed through device after device, wiping out the circuitry. “I’m a very good friend of Celine’s. I care very much about what happens to her. And right now, the answers that I need to help her are locked up in that balding head of yours.”

  “Well good luck getting them out. Because I’m not talking.”

  Mir’s smile grew sinister, the darkness in the house turning him into a great, hulking brute.

  “Luck has nothing to do with it, actually. Thankfully, neither does talking.” Clarity shone in the man’s eyes then. Clarity, as the professor realized when Mir stepped into the moonlight, magic sparking at his fingertips, his inhuman eyes glowing with an inner fire, exactly what manner of creature had come after him.

  Chapter 42

  “The project at the Field Museum is some kind of international excavation project. The real issue is…

  Mir, Odin, and Tyr looked up as Celine and Fen came in, hands joined, faces too flushed for a descent down two flights of stairs.

  “Sorry we’re late.” Celine giggled nervously before sliding into a chair across from Odin, dodging his incensed stare. “So, did something happen? Loki said you wanted to see us?”

  As if on cue, Loki strolled in behind them, and parked himself near the door.

  “I was just going over…” Mir cleared his throat. “Celine, I talked to Dr. Ellis last night.”

  Celine glanced across the table at him. “Talked as in had a conversation, or talked like how Fen talked to my father?”

  “Sadly, a bit of both.” Mir hesitated. “The man didn’t know much. It appears the only person who actually knows what the Field research project is, is you.”

  “And I can’t remember a single thing.”

  “Yeah, that’s a bit of a problem.”

  Celine pursed her lips, thinking. “When you pulled out my memories, was there anything strange in there, anything that didn’t belong?” When Mir shook his head, she paused. “Perhaps you didn’t go deep enough into Ellis? How hard did you look?”

  “I looked, trust me. I’ve thought this through and through. I found nothing odd, nothing missing in his memories, no gaps, either, or blank spaces of time. Not that I noticed. You’d think I would have seen it, then.” Mir claimed the seat next to her. “The man wasn’t actually part of the project. You were. But here’s what I did find out. It’s not much, but he gave me something.

  “The museum got a large, private donation, over ten million, the professor heard, to fund a dig in the Highlands. A peat bog, or what was once a bog. They found something, brought it back here for further research. A man contacted Ellis, asked for his best and brightest. He sent you.

  “Now here’s where it gets weird. I hacked into the Field’s records. There’s no history of a donation that large in the financial records, no record of any archeological find in Scotland, nothing on their lab schedule for research. I came up with nada. And yet…” Mir’s voice trailed off as he looked intently at Celine.

  “If I told you to go to the Askesan Bog…”

  Celine squeezed her eyes shut as an arrow of pain shot through her head.

  “See? Your reaction tells me it’s real. This whole thing is real and somewhere, locked in that building, is another damn clue to this puzzle.”

  “You didn’t hurt him, did you?” Celine’s voice sounded rather high. “Dr. Ellis? Mir, please tell me you didn’t hurt him.”

  “Not a hair on his balding head, although he’s going to have to have his house rewired and a new security system put in.” His mouth thinned out, and he shot Fen a pointed look. “He can afford it, don’t worry. I have a feeling I know where part of that ten million went.”

  “Where are we, then?” Odin’s cold voice cut through the room like a knife. “I don’t care about a middle-aged school teacher. I want to know where the God of Chaos is. I want to know what his next move is. And I want to be ready.” His face turned hard. “You find out, Mir. Figure it out now.”

  “I’ll help,” Celine said, turning to Odin. “I’ve got the stone. And actually, I’ve got something even better.”

  “Pray tell, what would that be?”

  “When he implanted those damn final symbols into my head, when he was distracted, I pulled a bit of his power out of him. Just a smidge, nothing he’d notice, and nothing that might affect me,” she added hastily, noting how stunned everyone seemed at her new revelation. “But what I can do is this.”

  She relaxed, focused, and then… “He’s out over the lake, about halfway to Michigan. He’s just…floating, testing out this new space, getting a feel for the gravity, the air, the sounds, and the smells. He escaped to the lake because the city was too…much.”

  “You know where he is?” Loki’s voice was astonished. “By sense or thought?”

  “More like…by feel. I can tell where he is, how close, and how far. I can tell how fast he’s moving, or if he’s moving at all. Right now, he’s stationary.”

  “All right then. Mir, see else what you two can come up with. I think Celine’s going to give you a run for
your money in the science department.” Tyr shoved back out of his chair. “Fen, you’re back on the streets, I’m pairing you up with your father. We’re switching back to full patrols until this city isn’t on fire every night.”

  “Speaking of which…” With a wave of his hand, Odin’s magic spun outwards, a surge of power cresting through the room with an icy pulse that passed through the room and then was gone. “There. The entire building is secure. For now.”

  “And that is precisely why you don’t kill the asshole,” Loki whispered to Fen, “because he comes in very handy at times.”

  Beside Fen, Celine leaned back in her seat. They were a kick-ass team, she thought, these fallen gods and the mortals, and this God of Chaos didn’t stand a chance.

  Alone, maybe the Orobus could best them but united? Her smile became a dangerous, feral thing.

  United they would bring the bastard down.

  Epilogue

  Arriving in the dripping Great Hall of the Underworld, Fen lifted his head and gazed upon his sister. It had been a week, and he’d put this meeting off as long as possible. But there was no delaying it any longer. Even though it was futile, he was going to ask for something he knew he’d never receive.

  An extension.

  Still, one had to try.

  “Fenrir. How are things in the mortal world?” Hel’s smile was wickedly bright. “Sounds busy, busy up there.”

  “You know full well how chaotic things are. Thankfully the mortals are getting things under some sort of control. For now.” He didn’t feel the need to mention it was pretty much a shit show. Local law was breaking down, gangs were running the streets, and humans were leaving the city in droves.

  “Pity. I do so enjoy a bit of pandemonium. So. Are you here to relieve me?” She slid dangerously close. “To keep your part of the bargain? Brother?” Her words tickled his ear. “Or perhaps you are here for another reason entirely?”